


Chase The Wind

by kayura_sanada



Category: Naruto
Genre: (Soooooorta), (Through A Very Familiar Ninjutsu), A Story Where GaaNaru Is Beginning- Middle- AND End-Game, Akatsuki - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Then Not So Much After That, Battle, Bonds, Chuunin Exams, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Ninjutsu, Post-Chuunin Exams, Psychological Torture, Soul Bond, Soulmates, The First Five Chapters Are Canon Compliant, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto Friendship, Uchiha Sasuke Retrieval Arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-01 18:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 65,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayura_sanada/pseuds/kayura_sanada
Summary: Since before he could even remember, Gaara had heard the sound of the howling wind in the back of his mind. He always wished he could find the person on the other end of that sound, that elusive being who might love him for who he was.





	1. Sandman

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing. The title is derived from “Touch the Sky” by Julie Fowlis. I was torn between that and “if I gotta be damned, I wanna be damned with you” from Meatloaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell.” I still don't know if I chose the better title.

Since before he could even remember, he’d heard the sound of the wind in his ears. His mind. According to Yashamaru – who looked surprised to hear Gaara’s question to begin with – it meant there was someone out there who would match his soul perfectly. A soulmate.

Someone who might love him.

People said that one could hear the sound of their partner, a sound that conveyed some part of them. The wind he heard was a part of his soulmate’s heart. And somewhere, someone could hear his own heart. He wondered what it sounded like. He wondered if it sounded as soothing to that person as the wind sounded to him. Wondered, as more and more people looked at him with hate and fear, if it wasn’t a sound that brought those same gazes from their eyes.

Yashamaru said he could hear nothing anymore; the person with whom he was linked had died, and their sound had faded inside of him. Gaara didn’t want that. He wanted what Yashamaru said had happened when he’d first met his other half – wanted to hear the sound of his own soul reflected in the sounds of his soulmate’s, until they’d mixed together into something indistinguishable from the other. Yashamaru had explained that indistinguishable meant they sounded like one sound, mixed together perfectly. But how could Gaara’s soul, so hated and despised, be a sound that would match the desert wind as it raced through the buildings at night?

He went to the playground sometimes, keeping to himself on the sidelines or, sometimes, on the swingset, and would see if he could hear something beyond the whistles of the wind. But every day, he heard nothing. Maybe the person he was matched with heard nothing. Maybe there was no soul for them to hear. Maybe even if he found them, he would never know because he wouldn’t hear anything.

In fact, he was certain of it. He attacked the children when they ran from him, attacked the man who glared at him the night he tried to give the girl he hurt medicine. He tried to go up to the roof, tried to find the sound of the wind. Instead he heard the sound of his sand, the cursed power he carried, and faced an assassin. Proof that he was unlovable sat in those uncaring, hateful eyes. If there was someone out there who was supposed to be his other half, surely they were just as evil and despised as he, if they even heard a heartless person like him.

He swore something to himself that empty night, the body of the one person he’d thought cared about him lying in pieces before him, his sand dripping like rain. He would stop searching for the owner of the wind. He would stop searching for someone to love him. If even Yashamaru wanted him dead, then his soulmate would, as well. He wouldn’t walk into that pain again. He would love only himself. Only he was capable of it.

* * *

From before he could even remember, he heard the sound of falling sand.

The Third Hokage had been the one to care for him, to give him a place of his own once school started and make sure he was eating and sleeping well. He was the one who told him of soulmates and asked him if he heard a constant noise in the back of his mind. The man seemed sad somehow to hear Naruto’s answer. Was it bad? “No,” the Third assured him, though Naruto wasn’t sure. He got a lot of looks that said people didn’t want him around. All that hate toward him, and there was someone matched to his soul?

“Then why?” Naruto had asked. “Why are you angry?”

“I’m not angry,” the Hokage said, and though Naruto knew that, he didn’t know what to call the look on the man’s face. No, he did – disappointment. “I’m afraid your match may not be here in Konoha.”

His soulmate wasn’t around here? “Why not?” he asked.

“There are several hidden villages. You know that from your teachings recently, right?” But Naruto just stared wide-eyed, and the Third sighed. “One is known for its deserts. That may very well be where your soulmate resides.”

Naruto didn’t really understand, but two things stood out to him. “So they’re far away, right? So I just have to go to see them.”

“It’s not that simple,” the Third said, shaking his head. “We don’t get along well with Sunagakure. We’re not welcome there.”

Naruto scowled and stomped his foot. “But if that’s where they are, then that’s where I have to go!”

“They may not be there,” the Third said. He raised his hands as if to wave off a fight. “I may be wrong. Your soulmate may be here.”

But that didn’t make sense to Naruto. No one here liked him. The adults hated him, the other kids scorned him. It made sense that his soulmate was someone from far away. He wondered what they were like. A pretty girl with a soft smile? Maybe they had pretty pink hair like Sakura, and would defend him if the other kids picked on him. Maybe they liked playing in the sandbox. The other kids played in there sometimes, though he wasn’t allowed to play with them. Maybe they were travelers, and they liked the colors of the desert or something (and what did deserts look like? He would have to find out). Either way, they weren’t from here, which meant they might not hate him.

He bounced on the balls of his feet. “I wanna go see them!”

The Third sighed again. He did that a lot with Naruto. “It’s not safe, not even for trained ninja.” Naruto crossed his arms and puffed his cheeks. “No, Naruto. If you want the chance to go to Sunagakure someday, then you’ll have to become a ninja.”

Naruto glared at him. “I’ll be a ninja, just you wait! And I’ll be the best one out there – I’m gonna take your job! And when I do, I’m gonna make it so people can go to the desert if they want to!” Naruto pointed at the hokage. “Then I’m gonna find my soulmate and we’re gonna hang out all the time! So _nyeh!”_ He stuck out his tongue and raced from the apartment. His actions the next few days consisted of backing up all the toilets in the Hokage mansion, leaving spiders in all the classrooms, and putting frogs in the Hokage’s desk drawers. And he still, in the end, didn’t feel satisfied.

* * *

He sat on the roof of his old home, his gaze spanning out past the village toward the empty desert. Over the past five years, Gaara had had ample opportunity to go out to the open desert to practice – and to kill. The wind beyond the village sounded different; when it howled, it howled over the tops of the dunes, spread sand throughout the air and into the valleys. It was quieter, more elemental. He wondered why his soulmate’s wind was louder, more like the village than the desert when he preferred the latter to the former. He wondered why he still came up to the roof when there was nothing for him to search for. Wondered why something in his chest told him to _move_ , to act, as if there was some sort of time limit before he failed something important.

He’d just come back from another mission, however, and it had been successful; those he’d gone with had gone to sleep, wishing one another good night while keeping their usual distance from him. But he had no such respite. He had no chance for rest. His gaze swept over the village below, glanced over the few people still out at this time of night. A couple of ninja returning from a late mission. A drunkard clinging desperately to the walls as he shambled down the alleyways. His gaze zeroed in on the man, remembering the last drunk to wander around at night. Should he?

He tapped a discordant beat against the top of his knee. In the end, he chose not to. He existed as a weapon, nothing more. For now, he would allow himself to sit on his leash. It wasn’t as if he need do anything but wait, no matter what the odd sensation in his chest told him.

* * *

He would go to the sandbox at night.

When it was dark out and the village was quiet, Naruto would sneak from his apartment – ninja training! – and make his way to the kids’ sandbox. He was too old for it now; he was in school and was learning to be a ninja and was yelled at when he watched the kids playing in the sand. But at night, no one was around to tell him what he could and couldn’t do, no one to tell him he was too old or too creepy or too annoying to be part of the group. He could go to the playground, sit down, and play.

The sandbox was messy from when the kids had been playing in it, and as usual, Naruto cleaned it up first. Toys went to the side or in the case to the side of the playground where they belonged – or got hidden around the playground, if he thought of a good prank. Then he smoothed the sand out. From the pictures he’d seen and the stories he’d heard, deserts had waves of sand like water. He liked making the waves in the sandbox, liked imagining cresting over one of those waves – one of those dunes – and seeing someone standing there. He liked to imagine hearing something pretty when he met them, like the far-off howl Hinata’d heard before she learned Kiba heard her, as well, or the chittering birds Iruka-sensei said he’d heard before he met his soulmate. (And if Iruka-sensei and two of his classmates could find their soulmates, then that meant they were definitely real, and that meant his was, too.) He didn’t want the soft humming Kiba’d heard or the rolling rocks Choji admitted to hearing, though, and definitely not the sound of grass swaying in a breeze, a sound matched to someone in their class who heard kids giggling. He wanted his soul to sound cool.

He played with the sand for a while, letting it drift through his fingers in a soft facsimile of the sound in his mind. The sound within him was louder, of course; deserts were a lot bigger. But the sifting sound wasn’t too far off, and he liked thinking about who he was going to meet. After a couple of years, he’d decided they were probably sandy-haired, with maybe brown eyes. They wouldn’t be super pretty, but who cared? Pretty didn’t mean much, anyway. There were lots of pretty people who were really mean. Like Sasuke. Who cared about prettiness, anyway? Why did everyone want to know what his sound was? Naruto would rather have someone super nice, someone who would look at him and smile.

For the past four years or so, there had been peace talks between Konoha and Suna. Naruto heard they decided to get along just a couple of months ago – less than a year before he graduated to become a ninja. He wouldn’t have to sneak off and find his soulmate. Ninja could have gotten into a lot of trouble for doing that, and he didn’t have any guarantee that the old man would let him go. But now he wouldn’t have to worry. Sunagakure would be a place he could visit freely. Once he was a ninja, surely he would get the chance.

He stopped sifting the sand and looked up. The night sky was full of a million stars, each twinkling in the sea of darkness. Somewhere out there, someone was in the desert looking up at the same sky. Hearing the sound of his heart. “I’m gonna find you,” he swore. He held up his fist to the sky. A ninja, he thought, had to keep his promises.

* * *

No matter how close Naruto got to Sakura, he never heard anything new. Whoever she was matched with, it wasn’t him. It also wasn’t Sasuke, much to Sakura’s disappointment; Sasuke, in a flat tone, admitted to hearing the pages of a book when pressed by Kakashi-sensei. “A sad truth about the life of a ninja,” Kakashi-sensei said, his one eye turned oddly on Naruto, “is that you may find yourself hearing the sound of your soulmate on a battlefield. You have to be willing to continue fighting, even if it means you may kill them.”

Sakura and Naruto paled. “No!” he said, thinking of his match somewhere in Sunagakure. “I refuse. I’ll find a way to win without killing them!”

“Get your head on straight, idiot,” Sasuke said, glaring at him over his steepled fingers. Even just sitting down in front of their teacher, the jerk tried to look cool. As if that was possible in that stupid high-collared shirt. “Do you even know what a battlefield is?”

“Of course I do!” He stood up and leaned over Sasuke. The brat just turned his head and humphed. “I know what fighting is. But I’m not gonna kill my soulmate!”

“As if soulmates matter,” Sasuke said, and Naruto’s jaw dropped.

“You don’t care about your soulmate, Sasuke-kun?” Sakura asked. She covered her mouth with her hand as if it could hide her wide eyes somehow.

“No,” he said shortly. He glared at the both of them. “I have more important goals than to go out searching for some stranger.”

“You’re just scared,” Naruto said. He lifted his chin and grinned as Sasuke turned that glare on him. “You’re afraid your soulmate won’t like you. Probably because of your bad attitude.”

Sasuke’s fingers clenched.

“All right, all right,” Kakashi-sensei said, interrupting them just as Sasuke tensed to stand. The man moved between the two of them. “Whether you’re interested in finding your soulmate or not, at the very least, the sudden noise in your head can be a distraction. At the worst, you’ll find yourself wondering who it is. It’s not something you’ll be able to help doing. It will be instinctive. You might see someone you find attractive, or someone equally distracted. And if it’s a mark you’ve been ordered to kill?”

Naruto lifted his chin. “I won’t do it.”

Kakashi looked at him. “Then you would be considered a traitor. Needless to say, you would not become Hokage.”

Naruto paled. Sakura giggled. “As if he could, anyway.”

Naruto glared at her, then at Sasuke and his stupid smirk. “I will!” he said. Then he turned back to Kakashi. “If my soulmate is someone I’m told to kill, then I’ll make them my friend! If we get along, then there’s no need to fight. I won’t kill someone I’m supposed to get along with.” He pointed at his chest. “I won’t betray my village or my friends, but I won’t betray my soulmate, either. That’s my way of the ninja!”

He lifted his chin. Kakashi stared at him for a moment longer before sighing. “I hope that enthusiasm works for you,” he said, and moved on. Naruto sat back down, his fists shaking. His heart pounded thick and hot in his chest. He wouldn’t fight his soulmate. He would never, ever kill the person destined to love him. A ninja had to be strong, and had to defend their village, sure, but there was more to being a ninja than that! He would show stupid Sasuke, and stupid Kakashi-sensei, and the whole stupid village. He would find his soulmate and be happy with them and become Hokage, and nothing and no one was going to stop him!

Kakashi-sensei clapped his hands. “Well. Let’s move on to the test, shall we?”

* * *

“You’re all going to the chuunin exam when it comes,” Baki said. Temari and Kankuro nodded, their stances held a good two meters from Gaara, in a false belief that they might evade his sand if he chose to wield it against them. Baki, likewise, stood about two meters in front of them all, taking a stance in between all of them. Gaara could feel the ground beneath them, could easily sift his sand into it and burst it from the ground beneath all three’s feet. He wouldn’t, of course. His existence was to kill, but so far, it was to kill Sunagakure’s enemies. So long as these people remained useful and stayed out of his way, they would live. For now.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” Temari said. She propped her fan against the ground and leaned on it with a single arm. The ninja on guard duty by the entrance to the village watched them all – watched _him_ – was vague alarm. They knew what happened if he came back in a bad mood. “We’re strong enough for jounin missions. Especially compared to those other villages.”

“This isn’t a simple exam,” Baki said, his voice sharp. Temari’s smirk slipped. “This is a mission. Your status as genin has been invaluable for getting our opponents to underestimate us. Unfortunately, this mission is too important to leave to anyone else.” His gaze landed on Gaara. It was hard, unforgiving, uncaring. Gaara didn’t flinch from it. “Your mission will be to help Sunagakure destroy Konoha.”

Temari perked up at that one, her lips creasing a bit into a frown. “What? I thought we were in peace talks?”

Baki glared at her. She quailed. “This has been decided by the Kazekage himself.” He looked at Kankuro when he made to open his mouth. “This is a direct order from him.” Kankuro shut up. “It depends on all of you performing perfectly. Especially you, Gaara.”

“I don’t care,” he said shortly. “So long as I can kill someone.”

Temari and Kankuro inched further away from him. He pulled his sand around them. His teammates and the guards all jumped away. Even Baki bent his legs and prepared to defend. Gaara grinned.

* * *

Naruto stomped his foot the instant Kakashi left. “When are we gonna stop getting these lame missions? I want something big! I want something exciting! This is crap! We fought really tough battles in Nami no Kuni. We should be given more respect!”

“I think Sasuke and I can handle it if we got another big fight,” Sakura said, grinning. “You, on the other hand, will only slow us down.”

Naruto scowled and turned on her. “Sakura-chan! Why are you so mean to me?” He pointed at Sasuke. “It’s _him_ you should be saying that to! It’s his fault we’re doing dumb missions now!” Sasuke turned and walked away. “Hey! Don’t ignore me!”

Sakura laughed at him, but after just a little while, they all went their separate ways. It was like this every day now; since they’d returned from the Land of the Waves, they’d been stuck with the stupidest missions possible. It was like they hadn’t even gone! It wasn’t their fault that a dangerous killer had been sent after the person they’d been meant to guard! And it wasn’t as if they’d failed their mission, so what the heck?

Plus, plus! He still owed Sasuke for saving his life, and Sasuke was the last person he ever wanted to be indebted to! But how was he supposed to get Sasuke to look bad – maybe even grovel before him a little bit – if he didn’t get the chance?

If something didn’t happen soon, he was going to go out of his mind.

* * *

Over a week later, and they were still taking on stupid weeding and clean-up jobs. When would the higher-ups start giving them anything good? He had yet to be able to show what he was capable of, and worse, Sasuke always seemed to manage to look cool, even when doing stupid, boring stuff!

Sasuke never got along with him or with Sakura, but Sakura never looked twice at Naruto. Even when he was nice to her, she just brushed him off. Konohamaru showed up right in the middle of him trying to convince her to practice with him, and thanks to Konohamaru’s help, he managed to anger her instead of make her feel better about Sasuke rejecting her. She beat them both up for it. Konohamaru held his head with tears in his eyes, clearly not used to the beatings the way Naruto was. “What the heck?” Konohamaru said. “Is she even a girl?”

Sakura turned to them.

Naruto gulped.

With survival instincts honed by years of ninja training, Naruto ran. Konohamaru, a trainee ninja with the best role model he could ask for, followed in Naruto’s footsteps, with his friends close behind. From their backs came the sound of imminent death. They each hurried their paces. Konohamaru, the fastest of his group and not tired from working all day, pulled out a bit ahead. And smacked into someone.

“That hurt,” a man said, the odd paint around his mouth curling into lines. A woman with blond hair stood next to him.

Naruto stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened.

He could hear the sound of wind.

Beside the ever-sifting sands of the desert, he now heard its wind, as well; it sounded hot, and strong, as if it could carry the sky on its shoulders. Each time the sand shifted, the wind howled. As if they moved together.

He paled.

The man picked Konohamaru up by his scarf. Naruto jumped. “I hate brats like you,” the man said, and Naruto shook his head. This man couldn’t be his soulmate. There was no way.

“Stop it. You’re going to get yelled at later,” the woman said. Naruto’s gaze slid to her. She was older than him, a tiny bit taller and carrying something big on her back, just like the guy. She wanted him to stop. She could – was she the one? Did she hear her desert sands as he heard his own soul – this hot, endless wind?

The man didn’t stop. He lifted Konohamaru higher. The woman didn’t move to stop him, either. Was Naruto going to have to do it? Was he going to have to fight?

“ _You may find yourself hearing the sound of your soulmate on a battlefield.”_

Naruto had sworn that he wouldn’t fight his soulmate. But this man couldn’t be the one, right? It was… probably… the girl, right? If he fought this guy, would she intervene? Would he have to fight her, too? Should he – but Konohamaru was in pain, and the weird guy was talking about hitting him, and Naruto _couldn’t_ let that happen. He _had_ to–

He ran forward, barely thinking of anything but maybe getting Konohamaru away. Fight? Flee? Free him and, what? How could he ask if one of them was his soulmate when they were in this situation?

He got shoved to the ground in his distraction. He stood again, dazed, his mind backflipping as he tried to figure out what he should do. He’d been waiting for this day for years, he had to do something! If these two just walked away now, what would he do? How would he chase them down again?

The woman looked away. “It’s not on me,” she said, and just stood there. Naruto looked at her wide-eyed. Her? She was his soulmate? She wouldn’t even say anything to this guy, even though he was hurting a kid!

Naruto yelled. He didn’t know what he said. He just said it. He could hear the sounds in his head, and they were beautiful together, as if waves of sand crashed along the shores of his mind. And yet one of these two was the bearer of that sound? How could he accept that?

No. There was someone else out there. Someone on a road to either side of him, someone else. The sound didn’t come from either of them. He refused to accept them!

“After this brat, it’s the runt that won’t shut up!” The man reared back to punch Konohamaru. On a shout, Naruto ran to stop him.

“Agh!” The man dropped Konohamaru. The kid landed on his butt. The man jerked and looked up. Naruto followed his gaze.

“What do you think you’re doing in someone else’s village?” Sasuke asked. The guy was acting all cool, posed on a tree and tossing a rock in one hand. For a wild second, Naruto wondered if _he_ was the bearer of that sand. But Naruto would have heard it long ago if that was the case, and he hadn’t. He knew better. His soulmate had to be from… from…

He looked at the strangers again, his eyes widening once more. “Someone else’s village,” Sasuke had said. Naruto barely noticed Sakura’s squeals of delight or Konohamaru racing back to his side. He stared at these people he didn’t know.

“Another brat to piss me off,” the stranger said, holding his hand. Tiny spots of blood soaked through his glove.

Sasuke crushed the rock he’d been tossing. “Get lost.”

He was looking cool, trying to steal the spotlight again! But this was Naruto’s fight, not Sasuke’s! If anyone was going to fight his soulmate, it would be him, and only if he was willing to–

To what? To admit that Kakashi-sensei may have been right? That his soulmate might not be everything he’d been searching for? That he was supposed to be alone?

No! He wouldn’t accept that, either!

Then what, he asked himself, _was_ he going to accept? What was he going to do?

“You’re lame!” Konohamaru said, and Naruto realized he’d been literally twiddling his thumbs while Sasuke threatened his soulmate. He jumped. Words poured out of his mouth, an assurance that he’d been about to take the stranger down, too. But could he? Would he, even if it meant Konohamaru’s life?

He’d frozen. On a battlefield. Just as Kakashi-sensei had warned them all not to do.

“Hey, you. Get down here,” the stranger said, attempting to goad Sasuke into movement. Naruto watched, unable to move. The man grabbed at the thing on his back. “You’re the kind of little brat I hate the most.”

He had to make a decision. Who would it be? Konohamaru, his team, his friends? Or the sound he heard in his mind, the beautiful desert winds he’d longed to hear in his quest for this very person?

“Kankuro. Stop.”

They all froze. It was a new voice. A new person. Naruto looked up and over, to the other side of the tree Sasuke sat on. Somehow, he’d managed to miss the sight of someone standing upside down on one of the branches there. He was younger than the other two, more around Naruto’s age, with hair as red as the dawn. He stared at his ally with arms crossed. “You’re an embarrassment to the village. Why do you think we came all this way to Konoha?”

Someone else. Someone else new, and this one had stopped the other two. Could it be…? Was it possible?

“G-Gaara,” the man said, and Naruto saw the man shake. “Listen, Gaara… they lashed out first–”

“Enough,” Gaara said. His voice hardly raised, yet both the man and the woman beside him flinched. “I’ll kill you.”

“I understand!” the man said quickly, holding up his hands. “I was wrong. I’m sorry. Really! I’m really sorry!”

The man turned to them all. His gaze barely flitted over Naruto and the others around him before turning to Sasuke. “All of you. I’m sorry.”

He apologized. He apologized, yet something in him was slightly off. Naruto tried to figure it out, but as he squinted, the man – sand enveloped him, and he appeared down beside the other two. Naruto paled.

_It’s him. It’s him, it’s him, it’s him!_ Say something, do something, stupid! Thank him! Tell him your name! Don’t just stand there!

“You two. Let’s go. We didn’t come here to play around.” The big guy – Kankuro, the sand guy said? He nodded and agreed, just like that. They all turned to leave.

They were leaving.

Say something! This is your chance! Never mind the scary big guy or the uncaring blonde. Don’t waste this! Move, stupid! Move!

“Hold on!”

Sakura ran a few steps forward, calling out to them. Naruto almost gasped in relief when they stopped. “What?” the woman asked. None turned.

“Judging from your headbands, you’re ninja from Sunagakure, right?”

Sunagakure. The Land of Sand. The village found in the desert.

_It’s him it’s him it’s him–_

“It’s true that our lands are allied nations. But the arbitrary coming and going of shinobi is supposed to be prohibited by the treaty. Please state your purpose!”

Wait. Really? Was that why he’d had yet to be sent to Sunagakure? Was that why he hadn’t been able to – then why were they there? Why could he hear the desert wind in his ears, filling his heart, making his entire body light, as if it could fly apart at any moment? His gaze locked on the short one. Each had something huge on their backs, but the shortest had the heaviest-looking by far. A huge gourd. Only the high tuft of his bright red hair was visible above it.

The woman sighed. Each turned. Naruto got another look at the short guy’s face. It was oddly soft-looking, with skin somehow extremely pale despite what Naruto had been taught about the desert. He had something weird above his eye, too. And the eyes themselves…

“So this is what they mean by the darkest place being under the candlestick. Don’t you know anything about it?” The blonde woman canted her hips and waved her hand. She said a bunch of stuff, held something up for them to see. Naruto ignored her.

There was something about the guy’s eyes. Something that didn’t suit his face. As if some dark shadow hid within them. Something dark ran around them. He thought he’d seen it before, but usually only on women. Was that a desert thing? Or just this guy’s personal taste? He tilted his head.

“We came to this village to take the Chuunin Exam,” the woman said.

“Chuunin Exam?” he asked. Naruto plugged back in to the conversation when he heard that. This exam was why they were here? How long would they be in the village? Where were they going? Would he have the chance to see them again? “What is this Chuunin Exam, anyway?”

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” The girl crossed her arms with a smirk. Naruto forced himself to look at her. She had a similar eye structure to the shorter one, come to think of it. Maybe it really was a desert thing? Maybe he’d just been reading too much into it?

“Naruto,” Konohamaru said, “you can advance from a Genin to a Chuunin if you pass the exam.”

He blinked. An exam? To advance in the ranks? It would bring him closer to the title of Hokage – _and_ it would get him closer to these three weirdos! “Then maybe I’ll try taking them!”

The short guy snorted. Naruto whipped his gaze back to him, ready to demand to know what that meant. Shouldn’t his soulmate be a little more supportive?

Sasuke jumped down from the tree. “Hey! You there.” Naruto jumped. He was talking to the red-haired one. To his soulmate. “What’s your name?”

Naruto’s heart pounded. It couldn’t be. Was Sasuke actually trying to take the spotlight from him again? From his soulmate this time?!

“Gaara of the Desert,” the short guy said, turning to Sasuke. Paying attention to Sasuke. Why? Why?! Shouldn’t he be introducing himself to Naruto?! _Of the desert_. Naruto knew. He knew that better than anyone! He knew the desert sands were inside Gaara. He wouldn’t even have to say that if he were talking to Naruto instead of stupid Sasuke! “I have an interest in you as well. Your name?”

Naruto’s heart stopped.

“Uchiha Sasuke.”

This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening! Naruto slammed his foot down and pointed at himself. “Hey! Hey! What about me? What about me?”

“Not interested.”

Naruto fell silent as the three strangers retreated. He stuttered in a breath.

His body had never felt so heavy. His chest had never felt so tight.

Somehow, he’d managed, through pure luck, to find his soulmate. A soulmate who was more interested in Sasuke than in him – no. A soulmate who had no interest in him at all.

What was he supposed to do now?


	2. Windmaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaara finds out who his soulmate is.

He’d spoken.

Simple reconnaissance, a boring part of mission work that nonetheless led to what he was made for, and suddenly he heard it. At first, he’d feared he’d somehow lost control during his waking hours. But no. The sound of sifting sand perfectly matched the wild winds he’d heard all his life. When before they’d always sounded like the howls that tore through the village at night, suddenly they sounded like the rough winds of an oncoming desert storm. His heart hammered at the sound, even as it was soothed – Gaara had always loved the sandstorms, the way the sand pebbled against his sand-coated skin and flung itself wildly through his hair. He loved the fierce freedom it showed; the desert took nothing and gave nothing. It simply demanded it exist as it was.

But the sound also meant his soulmate, whoever they were, carried the curse of the sand within them, just as he did. And that meant they had to die. For them, it might even be a mercy killing.

But when he’d traced the source and found Kankuro already taking care of the problem, he’d stopped the man. Why? What had been the point? Did he feel something for this sound? Did he love the desert wind so much that he would allow this other person, whoever they may be – the black-haired one, most likely – to live?

He had become weak in his complacence. In thinking that he would never hear anything. He’d made himself vulnerable to the idea that a sound may actually join with the one he heard. It had made him hesitate. Next time, whoever carried that sound would not be so lucky.

Gaara glared out beyond the roof of the building they and others who had come for testing had been placed within. The roofs here were more colorful, the paths more winding, less structured. They didn’t need to withstand the touch of the desert’s wrath. The Hokage’s tower stood tall, like a pillar – an easy target, if one dared to traverse the town to get there. A challenge? Or ego? He didn’t rightly care, so long as he got the chance to kill someone in the end.

Something in his chest gave him that strange, odd sensation again. The one that told him to _move_. Even in just a few hours, he found himself aching for that sound once more. Alone, the wind seemed to howl like something from an empty house. He breathed deeply; the air was thick with water here, with the scents of grass and sap and sun. This was where his soulmate had been all this time. Not in the village. Which made sense, if he thought about it now. Why would they be where everyone knew him? Where they recognized him for the monster he was?

And when this one learned? When the one who so closely matched his heart learned who he was? If they were not monsters, they would run from him. They would stare at him with those eyes, those wide, hating eyes. Or they would be monsters themselves. Either way, he would cut them down.

No more weakness. No more hesitation.

He slipped down from the roof, walked the wall to his window, and climbed back inside.

* * *

Naruto sat in his room. The walls were gray in the pre-dawn light, the shadows of the scrolls lying haphazardly on the floor monstrous enough to take over the room. He hadn’t gone to the sandbox today.

He knew now what his soul sounded like. He knew what it sounded like mixed with the soul of the man with sand in his heart – Gaara, a guy who named himself _of the desert_. He knew what that guy looked like, what his voice sounded like. He knew the shape of his eyes.

And he knew Gaara had no interest in him.

“Ah! Enough!” He snapped up off his bed. His gaze roamed out over his room, over the empty halls and the bureau with a shirt half hanging out of it and a doorway leading to the main room. Naruto had figured out who he was, so why hadn’t Gaara? He had to have heard the sound in his mind, too! Why did he think Sasuke was the one he should be interested in? Why wasn’t Naruto good enough?

He kicked a scroll, then another, and finally stomped his way to the door. He slid on one of the scrolls he’d kicked and fell with a shout.

There were, something in his mind whispered darkly, several reasons why Gaara wouldn’t pick him. Naruto had thought that, if he found someone from another village, that person might accept him for who he was. He hadn’t understood when he was younger, but he’d been looking for someone who might look at him and see _him_ , not the Kyuubi. He’d thought that might be possible.

But now someone _had_ seen him, as he was, and had found him wanting. What did that leave him with? If even his soulmate dismissed him, then…

He snatched himself up from the floor. “No way!” he said, then, louder, “no way!” A neighbor banged on his wall. “Sorry!” he said, and stood. His fists clenched. “I’ll prove myself. Somehow, I’ll prove myself, anyway! I’ll _make_ him see me! Soon he won’t even think about that stupid duck-butt head Sasuke!” Another bang. “Sorry!” Naruto said again. He raced to switch out of his clothes. They didn’t have a mission today, so he was free to do as he wished. He would nag the Third into letting him go to this Chuunin Exam. He would beat the pants off of everybody That would have to make Gaara look at him.

He hurried back into his room and promptly tripped over the scroll again. “Argh!”

* * *

Nagging the old man hadn’t done anything – all he’d repeatedly said on the subject was, “your team leader will decide!” – but Kakashi-sensei had come through! He’d gotten them all acceptance slips to enter the Chuunin Exam. Now all Naruto had to do was enter, show everyone what he was worth, and become Chuunin. Then that idiot redhead would _have_ to see what he was worth. It would be a two-for-one deal! Closer to Hokage, closer to his soulmate – it was the perfect plan!

Sakura shoved him. “Stop that,” she hissed. “You’re curled over the paper like a golem. It’s creepy.”

He straightened a bit and put a single hand behind his head. “Aw, Sakura-chan…”

They spoke only for a short while before breaking up. He stared at the small slip of paper. This tiny thing would lead him to everything he’d been wanting. He couldn’t wait.

* * *

Gaara knew the instant that team entered the room, nearly too late to join. He could hear the sudden addition of the sand amidst the call of the wind. It was a sound he’d never heard before two days ago, and yet it was more familiar than anything he’d ever heard in his life. He glared straight ahead, trying to ignore the voices from the back of the room. He would kill them. He would have his chance. They were Konoha ninja. They would be crushed within his sand soon enough.

“My name is Uzumaki Naruto! And none of you are gonna beat me! You got that?!”

He looked back. The blond child from the other day was shouting at everyone and grinning. The howling winds in his mind kicked up a notch, likely as annoyed with the proceedings as the black-haired ninja – Uchiha Sasuke – seemed. As well he should. Thanks to that kid, three idiots attacked his friend. An unnecessary display intent of dominance and fear. The leader of the fool gang showed off his ability. Not much of a secret, after he told the entire room that he was from Oto. A sound attack from a sound village was as obvious as a sand attack from a sand village.

Gaara looked at the silver-haired man who had fallen for it. Well. He supposed it was only important if you managed to dodge it.

The Konoha ninja in charge of this portion of the test showed himself, finally ending the ridiculous drama in the room. Things calmed long enough for the first exam to get underway. He took care of the issue of the difficult questions with little trouble. Little more than a warning glare told him Kankuro was taking care of his and Temari’s problems. Good. He needed to make up for his foolishness the other day.

The tenth and final question came near the end of the exam. The desert wind hadn’t vanished in the slightest; that team was still in the running. Of course it was. He looked over, easily able to find the loud and annoying one near the front of the room. He wasn’t surprised to see the weakling raise his hand. Bluster only got a man so–

“Never underestimate me!” The kid slammed his hand on the table so hard it bounced. Pencils skittered to the floor. “I don’t quit, and I won’t run!”

Gaara watched him. This was the second time the blond had shouted into the room, turning the atmosphere completely. But when before he’d done little more than aggravate the other genin, this time everyone turned placid before the kid’s words. He vowed to become the leader of his nation, even if he failed this final question. An utterly absurd belief. This one was too optimistic for his own good.

He deserved to be reminded about the real world.

* * *

Naruto had already had enough long before the second part of the Chuunin exam. Sasuke had specifically named Gaara as one of the two people he was interested in learning more about when Kabuto showed them all those weird shinobi cards of his, and then there was, of all things, a written exam! It was a good thing he was who he was, or else that might have tripped him up more than it had. Not that he wasn’t already spoiling for a fight, because he was.

So he had thought things were starting to look up at the start of the second exam, which was a goal to grab the other scroll and make it to the tower in the middle of the forest. (And why would anyone call a place “the Forest of Death”? Who named it? Who went up to this forest and said, “you know what? This is hereby known as the ‘Forest of Death’!” Stupid!) And then of course the sensei was another weird one, some freak with a blood fetish. And the other one! The super-long tongue guy!

So there had been plenty of warning, in retrospect, but how was he supposed to know that all of this was gonna happen? Snakes and crazy guys who _looked_ like snakes and blacking out and…

And it didn’t help that the sound of wind disappeared so suddenly once they’d been broken up into groups to head into the Forest. Hearing it made everything in him calm. Having it ripped away bothered him. Like having some missing limb return, only for it to disappear again.

He’d wanted to speak to Iruka-sensei about it, but there hadn’t been a way without Sasuke and Sakura overhearing. And even if they hadn’t been there, Iruka-sensei’s worry for him had made it impossible. How could he tell his old teacher that he was struggling with this switch-on switch-off soulmate noise when the man already doubted his capabilities? And how could he begin to admit he could hear it when Sasuke and Sakura would tease him mercilessly over it?

He’d managed to make it to the second part, though. And the instant they were let out of that first room and into the larger one, where the other successful groups had gathered, he could tell Gaara of the Desert had made it through, as well. He felt so much better the instant he heard it. Which, of course, was ruined when he saw his soulmate eyeing Sasuke. He snarled. He would show the sandman who he should be paying attention to.

Apparently there were too many of them who passed – which was _ridiculous;_ only seven teams had gotten through the first two rounds. And this after they’d been told they were some sort of sporting event for other countries, to see which they’d be picking to hire for jobs. (Which was also stupid.) But he would show everyone what he was capable of, just as Sasuke would. This would be his first chance to really show off in front of his soulmate. He could do it! Probably! No, definitely! And when he did, Gaara of the Desert would turn those eyes on him, not on Sasuke! Sasuke might want some big, awesome fight, might want to test his own strength, but Naruto would beat him, and then he would be the one to face Gaara.

This was the first real step to proving to his soulmate that he shouldn’t be ignored. He wasn’t gonna fail!

* * *

It took him longer than it should have to realize it.

At first, he thought it was of little importance. Uchiha Sasuke had left the room after his battle, but that didn’t mean he was far enough away for Gaara to stop hearing the sounds of the wind. He didn’t think anything of it until the blond boy fought. It was a long battle between two weaklings – and yet Gaara found himself watching, enraptured, as the blond showed a remarkable talent for planning, ingenuity – and then the most ridiculous luck, and then skill once again.

That was when he noticed that he still heard it. The desert wind. And Uchiha Sasuke had yet to return.

How far away was the medical room? How far from Gaara did Uchiha Sasuke now reside? And this boy – this grinning, laughing, cheeky idiot – he was still close. As was the pink-haired girl, despite her boring battle, in which she had managed to fail. He nearly dismissed her, only – if it wasn’t Uchiha Sasuke, then why would it be her? He cared little in that way for women, less for weaklings. He’d dismissed the blond as weak, as well, but now he might need to think twice. He was an idiot, and idealistic, but not as weak as he’d thought.

But if his soulmate was this Naruto? He’d thought it was Sasuke. That boy possessed as much darkness in his heart as Gaara. He’d thought his soulmate, if it was the Uchiha, was just as dark and evil as he. It would have been best for the world if such a one as he were eliminated. He could rid himself of his soulmate and the world of a monster, all in one. But if it was that kid? That idiot? There wasn’t enough intelligence in him for him to be evil. He would be ridding himself of that sound, but the cost would be killing someone simply so that they didn’t turn that gaze on him.

He clenched his fingers around his arms. He would have to check. He would have to be sure.

The thoughts drifted from his mind as the next battle began; the male contender was strong, capable. Merciless. Gaara watched the man beat the woman, his every move a direct blow. A slow death. Her blood trickled to the floor, then splashed, then puddled. He watched it with wide eyes.

The blond steeped his hand in the woman’s blood as she was carted away and swore victory on the bright crimson drops. Gaara’s entire body burst like fireworks at the sight. The desert wind in his mind rushed like a gale, like a sandstorm. His name barely flashed on the screen before he moved to the center of the ring. He glared up at his prize. “Do not keep me waiting.”

Blood. Blood. Finally, something sounded loud enough in his mind to drown out the horrible sound of shifting sands.

* * *

Naruto couldn’t understand it. He knew, as well as he knew his own name, that Gaara of the Desert was his soulmate. Yet there was something strange about him now, as Naruto watched him fight for the first time. Naruto felt a heaviness in the air that hadn’t been there, even when Neji had been beating Hinata into the floor. It only grew in prominence when Gaara started losing. Lee got a hit on the man the cat-hooded jerk said had never been hit before, and then two, and then… and then his face started sliding off. More sand. And then…

A grin. A grin like nothing Naruto had ever seen before. He shuddered.

“This is bad,” Cat-Hood said, and Naruto turned to him. Perhaps he would have gloated, if the man below didn’t match his soul so harmoniously. Lee was his friend, after all. “If this Gaara is able to catch Lee, he’ll be toyed with and then killed.”

This Gaara? He stared at Cat-Hood for a moment, then back down at the two men in the arena. There was only one, as far as Naruto saw. He heard that desert sound while around the much calmer, more silent Gaara, as well as this madly grinning thing down below.

“Is that all?” Gaara said, his voice even lower than usual. Naruto thought he could feel it reverberate up through his shoes. The desert wind in his mind howled.

Lee unwound the bandages on his arms, and suddenly Naruto couldn’t see him at all anymore. All he could see was Gaara, standing in the middle of a pile of sand, and the dust kicked up from Lee’s movement a he circled Gaara. Then Lee was underneath Gaara, and Gaara was in the air – a kick from Lee, right into the bottom of Gaara’s jaw, sent him flying, and then Gaara was getting pummeled by Lee in an all-out assault. Yet Naruto’s heart hammered as the battle continued. He couldn’t choose a side. Lee may have been his friend, but Gaara was his soulmate. Yet even as he thought that, he wondered if he should care. Something about Gaara wasn’t right. Cat-Hood could tell, too; whatever was up, it made Cat-Hood scared. Which made Naruto scared.

Lee grabbed Gaara within the bandages of his wrists and slammed him in a whirlwind to the ground. Naruto found his breath coming in pants as he gripped the balcony railing. Whatever Lee had done to Gaara, it wasn’t enough. He knew it already.

The desert wind hadn’t abated in the slightest.

“Lee won!” he heard Sakura shout. He leaned over the edge.

The sand that had encased Gaara’s body dripped, until finally it collapsed in on itself. Fake. A fake body, and Gaara formed from his sand behind Lee. The desert in his mind sounded too calm, almost; Naruto wondered if it shouldn’t have been a storm.

The battle shifted. Even Naruto, unskilled in the nuances of these sorts of things, could tell Gaara was getting a leg up; Lee hardly moved when Gaara struck out, the sand racing out without the man even having to move. As smoothly and fluidly as the sand had risen up to protect, now it flew out to attack. Lee barely managed to dodge before the sand grabbed him up.

And then it shifted again, as Lee’s skin turned red, as the tension in the arena banged and snapped at the power he released. Gaara got hit into the sky, so high and fast Naruto had to hear others shouting out Gaara’s location to be able to find him. His heart leaped into his throat. It strangled down the shout that bubbled its way up his throat. He clenched the railing so hard he lost feeling in his fingers.

Lee pounded into Gaara all over again, and this time Naruto didn’t have a chance of seeing what the man was doing. He only saw Gaara’s body arc in reaction to hit after hit. He should be cheering for Lee. He should be… something. Something. What?

Gaara slammed once more to the floor. Naruto leaned down, squinted to see past the dust and broken tile. Gaara moved from within the cloud. He could see Gaara reach his hand out toward Lee. Cat-Hood hissed. The sand raced out, despite the beating Gaara had just taken – and he didn’t look harmed, even from that hit, and where did that giant gourd thing go? – and then Lee’s arm and leg were captured, caught up in that desert wave, and then–

Naruto flinched at the sound of breaking bones, pushed away from the railing, his body going limp as Lee’s scream rent the air. He watched with eyes blown wide as Gaara continued his assault on a suddenly prostrate Lee. Only Lee’s sensei managed to react in time, stopping Gaara from – from what? Had he been about to kill Lee, just as Cat-Hood had said?

Gaara clutched his head as Gai stood before him. Attacking him? Genjutsu? Forcing him to stop? Gaara spoke, but Naruto couldn’t hear. He leaned forward. Gai, however, when he spoke, was loud enough to hear. “He’s my beloved, precious protege.”

Naruto banged against the railing, making it tremble beneath his fists. Gaara stared at Gai for a long, endless moment. He walked away. Naruto’s heartbeat constricted and contracted around his throat, making it impossible to breathe, to swallow. He saw Gaara say something else, but he once again couldn’t hear. The boy’s voice was naturally low, so when he spoke quietly, it was impossible to hear him from far distances. His hands were still clenched, though, so whatever he was saying, it wasn’t a sentiment of happiness or pleasure. The sand that had protected Gaara there at the end formed around his back. The gourd. It had been the gourd that had saved him.

Naruto watched his retreat as Gaara was named victor. Then turned his gaze once again as Lee… stood.

He gasped. But Lee had already fallen unconscious, and Gai hugged him, helped him back to the ground. Gaara kept moving away, uncaring of what his attack had just done. Naruto made some choked noise and vaulted over the edge of the railing as the jounin formed around Lee and called for the medics.

He stared at Gaara. This was his soulmate. This person who won’t even look and see if Lee is all right. This person who hurt him so badly, even though he’d managed to get out of the fight unscathed! He gritted his teeth and ran past to get to Lee’s side. He hadn’t even cheered Lee on. He hadn’t done anything. He’d stood torn, undecided, simply because he heard Gaara’s sand in his mind as well as in the arena.

And then he heard the price Lee had paid, and his gut twisted sideways. He could still hear the desert wind, but it didn’t bring him comfort anymore.

* * *

A month before they enacted their plan. A month before he faced off against whoever held that sound in their mind. Gaara was grateful for the reprieve. Wherever his soulmate was, they weren’t near the building he stayed in. He didn’t hear that sound after the Chuunin preliminaries completed. With nothing but the wind in his mind again, he was able to focus a bit better. More evidence that, in order to be the weapon he’d been made into, he would have to kill whichever genin carried that desert inside them.

He spent days doing little more than keeping low, as ordered. Three of four weeks of waiting, and he was hungry for something. That feeling, the one he’d known to come and go in waves all his life, returned, urging him to take action. He preferred the silence of the desert, the howling wind that seemed to snake through the wild paths of this town, that whistled as if following the long lines of Suna’s buildings. He didn’t want to hear the sand as it raced over the dunes. As it snaked along a man’s skin.

Yet still he felt the need to go. To find. It ached in his breast like a thing alive, pushing him to move away from his silent complacency and search. There was little need. He would find the owner of that sound come the final part of the Chuunin Exam. And when he did, he would be fighting against that person, and all other Konoha ninja. His fingers clenched and unclenched at the thought.

Konoha. A village of ease, of comfort. This was a land that did not know suffering and hardship, as Suna did. Its people were simple and prosperous, its buildings bright and colorful because they could be expected to last, with no wind to chip the paint and no monetary struggles to make the effort an exorbitance. A place where shinobi could be little more than loud, laughing fools. Where one’s team leader could come to rescue his subordinate without a second thought, acting as shield to another.

He clutched his head and grimaced. One human shielding another, calling them precious. He snarled. Someone like that… someone being shielded like that… did not deserve to be called a shinobi. What was so special about someone who couldn’t even fight? He had been strong, but Gaara’s attack had taken care of that. The genin held no more worth.

So then why? Why had that jounin gone to protect him? _Why?_

* * *

Gaara moved. He thought, at first, that he might actually be hunting down that desert sand, despite not wanting to ever hear that sound again. But when he managed to focus on his stumbling steps, he found himself making his way to the building with the giant cross on it – the hospital. Though his steps were less steady than normal, he managed to make it to the door. He gripped the doorjamb, forced himself to stand straight. He would not be waylaid from his cause. He stepped through the door. Nurses turned to him for a second, but his steps were finally steady, and they paid him little mind. He looked around to find several people walking back and forth through the halls. He had managed to come during visiting hours.

He made his way down several halls before getting an idea of the layout of the building. Pediatric was on the right, far away from the more serious injuries on the left. The boy would be there, at the West Wing. Gaara’s attacks were never minor.

Two nurses came up to him as he made his way down the wing. They stopped for a moment, looked him up and down, and smiled. “Do you need help finding your way?” one asked, either ignoring or missing how he tensed as they came near. “You’re from Sunagakure, aren’t you?”

He nodded, recognizing the chance given to him. “I’m looking for the one injured in the exam,” he said. It had been three weeks. There was only one who would still be injured after all this time.

Sure enough, the nurses immediately knew who he was speaking of. With those easy smiles, they pointed him further down the West Wing, down to the very end of the long-term care ward. Their smiles turned strained as they spoke of Lee – that was his name, right – of Lee’s progress. Gaara knew very well what kind of progress the genin had made – none. There would be none. The boy had been lucky he’d even survived Gaara’s attack. Most did not get such a chance.

The halls were slightly sparser here; people who had been in this ward for a while likely received less visitors over time, as people had to return to work or home or whatever other duties in their lives. Nonetheless, he heard talking, movement, from many of the rooms. People, coming to visit their injured neighbors and comrades. Visiting friends.

Gaara remembered seeing that blond idiot race to that boy’s side. No doubt he’d been here, come to visit. If that boy, that idiot – Uzumaki Naruto – was friends with this boy, and was also Gaara’s soulmate – what kind of eyes would that boy have when next they met? Would he stand in front of --- would, like that jounin, his soulmate stand before him, shielding someone else from his attack?

He gripped the doorjamb leading to Lee’s room, the memories of the Chuunin fight replaying over and over in his head. That man, his face deep-pressed into a scowl, his gaze unflinching. His hand out. Batting Gaara’s sand away. He snarled. On that bed, unconscious, pale and bushy-browed and limp, was someone another had chosen as worth defending. There was nothing special about him. He was fast. He’d nearly hurt Gaara. He was skilled. Gaara could give him that much. But what about him demanded others protect him? Gaara was strong, but no one ever stood to shield him. No. Everyone was always too busy protecting others.

Why him? Gaara pushed off from the wall and moved to the bed. Why him? What made him so special? What made him so important that the idea of him dying made others act? Hug eyebrows, heavy fulcrum, wide eyes – it wasn’t looks. Skill? The Hyuuga boy was more skilled than this kid. The Uchiha was more skilled than him. Gaara clearly was. So what else was there? What made this one worth more than him?

He heard sand, nearly raged at the sound, until he realized his sand was moving. Reacting to his will. Good. _Good._ This time, he wouldn’t leave the defended alone. This time, he wouldn’t walk away or try to make amends. This time… this time…

More sand. More sand, mixing with the wind. He froze, then tried to finish, the clench his hand and end it. His fingers didn’t curl.

He couldn’t move.

Someone punched him right in the jaw. His head snapped to the side. Someone near the doorway shouted as if in pain. He caught his balance, his heart pounding as he realized he was hearing the desert winds in his mind again. He was here.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!”

He looked. The loud, idiot blond, and the one with shadows. They were the ones in the room with him. No Uchiha Sasuke. Not that it mattered. He already knew – he’d gone to where the Uchiha was, and he hadn’t heard a thing. But now he had confirmation. Gaara’s gaze zeroed in on the blond. Naruto and his black-haired friend were arguing, speaking on how Naruto’s punch had been felt by his comrade. It had been strong enough to chip his sand armor.

Naruto went to stand by his ally. “What the heck are you trying to pull?” the blond asked again. He stood in nothing but a t-shirt and shorts, his hair wild as if… as if torn by the wind.

_Him_ , something in his mind whispered over and over again. Him, him, him, him.

Gaara tested out his sand. It still moved, even caught as he was by the man’s shadows. Good. He could still fight. His gaze slid to the blond.

“Hey!” the blond shouted. Talking, talking, always talking. “What are you trying to do to Bushy-Brows?!”

Bushy-brows. What an apt name. “I wanted to kill him.”

Those big blue eyes widened. “What?” Disbelief. Almost. He was almost there. To the place where he could get the boy, where he could get the reaction he was waiting for. The reaction that would pave the way to the ending Gaara needed. Where the sound of his sand would never fill his mind again.

Why did he need to see it first? Why couldn’t he simply act?

But it was the black-haired one who spoke next, trying to steal Gaara’s attention from the man who – from his soulmate. The loud, ridiculous one, the one he’d initially dismissed for Uchiha Sasuke, was his soulmate. “And why would you want to do that? You won your match against him. Do you have a personal vendetta or something?”

Gaara looked at him. “No. Nothing like that.” He slid his gaze back to Naruto. “I want to kill him because… I just want to kill him.”

He expected fear. He expected hate. This idiot, instead, pointed and shouted, at the top of his lungs, “do you even know what the heck you’re saying? Do you?!”

“You really weren’t raised right, were you? You’re really self-centered.”

Yet despite his words, Gaara could see in the black-haired one’s eyes the fear that he’d expected from the blond. He could see – could feel, in his own mirrored movements – the man adjust his stance, a stiffening in every muscle as he digested what Gaara had said. Yet his soulmate did not flinch. He found something in him moving, too – that same something that always urged him forward. When before he’d thought he was staring the blond down, now he wondered if he wasn’t simply staring. “If you try to interfere, I’ll kill you, too.”

The blond actually took a step forward and showed him his fist. “What?! Just try it!”

“Hey! Quit it, Naruto!”

Unbelievable. Something in him curled and twisted. He didn’t understand what it was. It made him want to curl his hands into fists. It made him want to attack. It made him want to grab the blond up and drag him away. To where? He could just as easily kill him here.

The black-haired one tried to scare him. He spoke of reserves he and Naruto had that Gaara was as yet unaware of. Not once did Gaara turn away from the blond, from that angry glare that refused to flinch away. “I’ll say this once more,” he said, and was hardly able to understand why he was _warning_ this person away, “if you keep interfering, I’ll kill you.”

He felt the flinch in the other man as his own body echoed the response. The blond just flailed wilder. “You can’t kill me!”

“I told you to quit it!” The black-haired one said, turning his head entirely now and throwing his hand out – likely stopping Gaara’s soulmate from charging at him. “Don’t forget, this guy has monster-like strength!”

Monster-like. How appropriate.

Instead of scaring him, however, the boy’s words made the blond smirk. “Yeah, but I’ve got a real live monster inside of me. I won’t lose to someone like him!”

The desert winds howled like an incoming storm, rattling the edges of his mind until it almost felt like it shook his body. His very soul rose in reaction to those words. Every inch of his skin ignited as if lightning had touched him. He’d thought it would only make sense if someone like Uchiha Sasuke was his other half. But this was so much better. Yes, this so-called soulmate business was perfect. Was his soulmate’s monster’s power some control over the wind? Did he hear the man’s monster as readily as the blond heard his own?

It was perfect. So perfect he couldn’t imagine it being anything else. Of course, he thought. Of course this man was the one he heard. This whole thing had been led to this moment. Now he knew why he’d been given this sound. It was his job to eradicate this other monster. “A monster, hm. I have one of those, too.” Naruto jerked. Finally, a response more in line with what he’d been expecting. He sent the black-haired one a short look, nearly stripping his gaze from Naruto to do so. “As you said, I wasn’t ‘raised right.’” He looked back to Naruto. He found himself telling his soulmate about his past, about his birth coming by killing his mother, about his father sealing the spirit of a Sunagakure elder inside of him. Those blue eyes might have shown surprise, but there was more inside them. He didn’t recognize it. No one had ever looked at him like that before.

After he finished speaking, the blond kept quiet. Finally, Gaara had found a way to make him stop yelling. The sudden silence was picked up by the black-haired one. “A type of possession art that causes a fetus to be forcibly possessed…? To go that far… that’s crazy.” The genin chuckled. “What kind of parent does something like that? What twisted love.”

“Love?” The blond jerked again. Gaara still couldn’t read what he was seeing. Whatever it was in that face, it wasn’t something he could stand to look at. He wanted it gone. “Don’t judge me by your standards.”

There. That was the expression he was looking for. Yet there was still something missing from it. The boy’s brows were still furrowed, as if he didn’t understand what he was hearing. As if he still carried anger enough to try to fight him. That wind. That brutally unflinching wind.

He would make it shrink back from him. If he saw that face… if he saw that face, he could do it. He might hesitate now, but if he could only _see it…_

“Family. Let me tell you what that word means to me,” he said, watching the blond closely. “Mere hulls of flesh connected by hatred and murderous intent. My mother’s life was sacrificed so that I could be brought to life as the village’s greatest masterpiece, and as the Kazekage’s son. My father taught me secret shinobi skills, one after another.” Alone, in a house where no one from the village was allowed to enter. Never allowed to leave, guarded inside his house every moment of every day. Where he was given every treat he asked for. Every toy, so long as he fulfilled expectations. A life of learning to kill. Praise when he did well. At first. “I was raised in isolation, spoiled and overprotected. At first, I thought that was love…” He looked out, unaware he’d even closed his eyes until he realized he didn’t know how his soulmate looked. The same. Brows still furrowed, that odd look in his eyes. Further, then. “Until the incident.”

“Until what incident?” the black-haired one asked, but it was he who mattered now.

His soulmate still stood straight-backed, his stance one of, if not confidence, then certainly not fear or cowardice. Gaara knew how it would end, however. Eventually, everyone gave him that look. His heart was doing odd things in his chest, making it hard to wrap his sand around that body and squeeze the blood through that tanned skin. Even when the blond spoke up, that same grating bluster snapped through the air. “What are you talking about?!”

Not nearly enough fear. He should have been able to do it – he’d never hesitated before. These two were simply in his way. He could kill them. All three, including the one in the bed, so apparently beloved that Gaara’s soulmate would punch him before letting him do as he pleased. Why couldn’t he kill him? Why did he see the boy’s fearlessness and shiver with excitement? Why did the feeling not bring with it the rumble of madness?

“Well? So what the heck happened?”

Why did he ask? Was the idiot curious? Did he sense something deeper? Did he feel the same inexorable pull that demanded they get closer? Closer. Close enough to touch. Close enough for him to wrap his fingers around that throat.

Gaara grinned.

“For the past six years – ever since I turned six – my father has been trying to assassinate me. I’ve lost count of how many attempts he’s made.”

“Eh?”

Those half-angry, half-confused brows had finally lifted up. Finally, the fool with the wind demon was beginning to understand. If he could see that face…

“What?” the black-haired man tried to interrupt. “But you just said your father spoiled you. So what do you mean?”

Gaara told them. He watched the blond’s face as he spoke of being a lauded weapon – one too powerful, too unwieldy, to believe they could control. When before he’d been considered a weapon so prized it should be kept in a glass case and polished to a gleam, he was instead recognized as a weapon that could fire upon anyone, at any time. A dangerous, loaded trebuchet just waiting to fire. “To them, I am just a relic of the past that they wish to erase and forget. So… for what purpose do I exist? Why am I alive? At first, when I asked myself that, I had no answer.” Those eyes hadn’t changed. But they were starting to. They were beginning to show, if nothing else, an understanding of where this was going. He smirked. “But while I continue to live, I need a _reason_. Otherwise, I might as well be dead.”

Yes. The other said he carried a monster, but he wasn’t one. He was too stupid to be much of anything. But Gaara – Gaara was different. The desert winds baked in his head, tore through the annals of his mind. His sand sifted softly in his ear.

He recited the reason why he lived. To kill. To kill everyone other than himself. If he was a weapon, then he existed to end others’ lives. He grinned as he saw those brows, plastered down still, as they failed to cover the widening of those eyes, the trembling taking over those limbs. “As long as there are people out there for me to kill, then I will not cease to exist.”

Brows lowered in anger. Teeth gritted, lips pulled back. Eyes so wide the sclera shone on all sides around the iris.

There. It was the look he’d been waiting for.

He called the sand to him. It swarmed around him, rose to the ceiling in disfigured pillars at his call. The two genin nearly jumped in their skin at the sight. Gaara knew his grin was widening, turning him into something almost feral as he called the sand forward. “Now. Help me feel alive!”

“Enough!”

He turned. Froze. Him. The jounin who had stood before the boy Gaara had tried to kill. He was back, once more taking Gaara’s kill from him. Once more getting in the way.

If he continued, would this man jump in front of these two? Would he shield Gaara’s soulmate from him? Would this man stand before the blond, hands out, refusing to let Gaara so much as injure another? He clutched his head. Would his soulmate, another professing to carry a monster inside him, be given that living, breathing flesh of a shield to thwart his efforts – evidence that he stood apart, that others could be granted that which was never given to him? He grunted. His feet wobbled, suddenly unable to hold his weight. He clenched his fists and made his unsteady way to the door. With the help of the doorjamb, he was able to look back at them. At _him_. “I will kill you all. Just you wait.”

_You. I will see your blood on my sand._ He would if it killed him.

And nothing ever killed him.


	3. Meaning of the Word 'Friend'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chuunin Exams reach their zenith.

Naruto hardly slept that night.

When he wasn’t remembering the hospital and the sight of his soulmate, eyes and grin wide, speaking on how he existed to kill, how he wanted to kill even Naruto himself, then he was thinking about his upcoming fight against Neji and what it meant to be fighting someone so strong. Not like, if he wasn’t fighting Neji, he wouldn’t be fighting strong people. Everyone in this arena match was going to be powerful. The fact that he was standing with them meant more than anything else he could think of. He was of the top elite of the genin class. No longer was he at the bottom, staring up at the class’ heroes as he struggled just to get by. He was their equal.

The thought had him rolling out of bed, nearly excited for the day… until he recalled the hospital again.

His soulmate. Gaara of the Desert. He hadn’t thought of how someone from another country might understand and accept him. He’d thought it would e simple – they didn’t know how the village hated him, so they would see him for who he was. But it was more than that. He should have realized it the moment he learned about _why_. Why the village had turned from him at the very moment of his birth, as if his very existence was a stain on Konoha.

His soulmate understood that burden. He carried a monster, too. Naruto understood, just as Gaara understood. That was why they were linked – only someone in their position would truly understand one another.

He stood on his feet. The sun outside the window had only just crept above the horizon, limning the darkness in red and gold. He could only hear the desert sands, trickling as always through the fingers of his mind. He knew now what that sound entailed. The man he was bound to was trapped in a sand cage. A prison he couldn’t escape anymore than Naruto could escape his own. During his training, he’d gotten his first glimpse of the creature locked within him. Gaara had that, too. That was why his soul sounded like sand – his entire existence was trapped within the existence of the monster his father had placed inside him, only to fear the creature he himself had created.

Naruto had always wanted to meet his soulmate. He’d thought he could find someone to accept him. What he should have thought was how soulmates were formed. Maybe he and Gaara were linked, not because they would love and accept each other for who they were, but because they would simply understand one another best.

Gaara lived to kill. Naruto _did_ understand that, better than anyone else in the world. It was why he understood that, when there was a monster inside of you, when you had nothing to lose because you’d never been given anything – that was a power that couldn’t be stopped.

He stared at his home. It was messy and tiny and bland, but it was full. Full of scrolls, of clothes. Over there on the table was the basket Kakashi-sensei had brought vegetables in. Over there, untouched on the top of his dresser, were the books Sakura-chan had insisted he take to help him “learn the basics.” Over on his nightstand was the polish Sasuke had let him borrow – though not without teasing him for being useless even at buying necessities. And in the fridge was the only edible food, courtesy of Iruka-sensei checking in on him. He also had a copy of one of Ero-sennin’s books on his kitchen counter, left by the old man on a visit. Like the books Sakura had given him, he’d done little more than flip through the pages.

He tried to imagine how his home without the touch of his friends and loved ones. Lonely. Empty. Even if he filled it with things until it was full to bursting, it wouldn’t be enough.

He shuddered and got dressed.

* * *

He felt it.

In the middle of the battle, the blond’s chakra changed. Gaara could sense it. Uzumaki Naruto’s chakra was wild and untamed, but it was mellow, too. This was not. This was not unlike that which he felt himself, at all times, roiling in his belly. The blond had spoken of having a monster inside of him. Now Gaara knew it had been true.

The entire battle, the Hyuuga had spoken of fate, and of accepting it. And the entire time, the blond had rejected it. He wondered how the blond felt about what they had been dealt. He wondered why that chakra, so angry and powerful it felt more like the sun, sounded like wind in his mind.

They clashed, the Hyuuga and Uzumaki Naruto, and Gaara found himself leaning forward to see what had happened. When he saw that his soulmate had failed, he’d felt oddly… disappointed.

Then he won. Something hard beat in his breast at the sight. His soulmate’s fingers dripped with blood. Scrapes and bruises covered his form. And he was victorious.

His eyes widened. He wanted to fight. He wanted to kill. If his soulmate was going to show off in front of him, then he should return the favor, shouldn’t he?

* * *

Sasuke still hadn’t arrived.

It was the first thing he’d thought since returning from his victory against Neji. He’d wanted Sasuke to have seen how strong he’d become, how he’d shown that hard work really could pay off. He’d also been happy to note that hearing the trickling sand turn into desert wind hadn’t destroyed his concentration the way he’d feared it might.

What didn’t make sense was how it calmed his racing heart, even with everything he now knew about his chosen one. It didn’t make sense that the sound would soothe him, but it did. He felt stronger for hearing it.

Which made no sense. No matter how many times he sent glares Gaara’s way, just one look from the sand ninja had him freezing up all over again. It made him want to punch something. But his match had ended, and everyone else’s had gone through, too – although that was partly because Cat-Hood Kankuro had wimped out and forfeited his match – and all he had left was to wait for Sasuke to be able to find out who he was going to fight next.

But when he told Sasuke not to lose to Gaara, told him he wanted to fight Sasuke, too, he couldn’t help but think on what he’d seen. He knew gaining the Kyuubi’s power had granted him his victory. It had simply helped him replace his chakra, but it had also given him the chance to call up that giant frog. So if he could use that chakra all the time, and could fight like that, with giant frogs and endless doppelgangers, all the time, then would he be able to beat Sasuke? And, if he had a chance, didn’t that mean Gaara had a good chance, too?

‘A good chance.’ At the very least.

He and Shikamaru headed up the stairs, both silent as they hurried to catch the battle between Gaara and Sasuke. Naruto, however, barely crested the top of the side railing before he felt the desert winds in his mind push him to his left. He looked over and froze. “Eh? Naruto? What’s the matter?” Shikamaru must have caught sight of what Naruto had seen, however, because he stopped asking shortly after.

Two men stood before Gaara. They spoke without fear of being overheard – the stairs weren’t in use; Naruto and Shikamaru were the only ones around. Save, of course, for the two men blocking Gaara’s passage. Naruto paled.

The two men barely got to demand Gaara throw the match before that sand blasted out in all directions. It snatched a limb each – an arm on one, a leg on the other – and then, after ensuring they couldn’t run, wrapped around them both, almost quicker than Naruto could follow. It didn’t wait until the men were covered completely – or even covered slightly. The grips around the arm and leg squeezed. Only short screams pierced the air before the rest of the sand had its way.

Limbs cracked and peeled away like wet paper. Blood splattered the walls. It sloshed in pools to the floor. Gaara grinned through it all, watching the limbs tear and organs spill as if fascinated. Naruto couldn’t breathe.

Gaara came toward them. Neither of them moved; a single step to or away would guarantee attention. He felt like a deer in the woods, watching the ninja pass by over the trees. Hoping they wouldn’t be spotted. Hoping they wouldn’t matter today.

Gaara walked past them, maniacal grin dimming once he was past the carnage, and stepped past them as if they didn’t matter. The desert wind sang and sifted, the tug almost powerful, despite what he’d just seen. His legs were locked in place. He couldn’t move, even if he was willing to listen to the insane feeling inside him. Once Gaara was safely gone, he collapsed as if from cut strings. Shikamaru wasn’t far behind him. He struggled to get breath in lungs finally working again.

“If it weren’t for those two, we probably would have been killed,” Shikamaru said, and Naruto feared the words may have been true. Gaara had yet to acknowledge he heard anything at all. And if he did? He’d told Naruto straight to his face that he wanted to kill. He’d _intended_ to kill him. Naruto hadn’t fully thought of what that might mean. Shikamaru hissed in a breath and rubbed his temple, smearing the sudden shock of sweat on his brow. Naruto could feel it, too, on the back of his neck. “I’ve never met anyone who killed so automatically. Even Sasuke better watch it.”

Sasuke could take care of himself. Couldn’t he?

“Remember the time we ran into him at the hospital?” Shikamaru asked. Naruto fought not to flinch at the memory. He didn’t know what he’d still been hoping for, after the battle he’d witnessed between Gaara and Lee. He’d thought Gaara was just a jerk, or maybe just intimidating, or had thought he’d needed to do what he’d done in order to win. Instead, he’d learned there were others carrying beasts inside them. “That time, he said, ‘I will kill you all. Just you wait.’ But he didn’t. Even though it was his best chance. We don’t even register in his sight.”

Naruto jerked. He’d thought… he’d thought, just maybe, it had been Gaara reacting to the fact that he was the man’s soulmate. He’d thought Gaara might have somehow hesitated. But there was no hesitation in him. He’d looked Naruto straight in the eyes when he’d demanded they help him feel alive. He hadn’t been asking for love or commitment. He’d been asking for their deaths.

“We’re not enough for him,” he said, and felt something heavy in him. It felt almost too big to lift. He may have made it to the finals. He may have beaten Neji and proved his strength. But he still wasn’t what his soulmate was looking for.

“Right now,” Shikamaru said, “the only one who can satisfy him…”

Naruto grimaced. “…is Sasuke.” Sasuke. What… what would Naruto do, if his soulmate killed his friend? What would he do if his soulmate used Sasuke to validate his existence? Would… would he have to fight him, after all? Would Naruto have to face the person on the other side of his soul and kill them? Would he be killed, even though they knew what they were to each other?

His fists clenched. He should have told someone. Back when he first heard the noise, he should have said something to someone. But he’d been so excited, so happy, that he hadn’t thought about it. He’d thought only about proving who he was to Gaara, and hadn’t given a lick of thought about telling someone else. Who would he have gone to, anyway? The Third, who had tried to convince him that meeting his soulmate wasn’t even realistic? Who insisted that country boundaries would decide whether Naruto ever got to be with his soulmate or not? Iruka-sensei, who wouldn’t even know enough about Naruto’s fears to be anything other than either blindly supportive or worried out of his mind? Or Kakashi-sensei, who would have heard Naruto’s soulmate was in the Chuunin Exams and would likely have warned him that he would have to fight Gaara or give up his place in the exams?

He stood. “Shikamaru.” He looked over to his old classmate. The man sat blinking up at him. “Let’s go up to Kakashi-sensei!”

Shikamaru’s brows furrowed. “What are you thinking?” But Naruto had already turned and raced up the last few stairs. “Hey!”

He had to stop the match. Telling Kakashi-sensei what he’d seen in the hospital – what he’d learned – that Gaara intended to kill Sasuke, that he’d just killed two guys for being obnoxious, that… all of that had to be enough. And if it wasn’t? If it wasn’t, then he would tell Kakashi everything else. He would tell him Gaara was his soulmate. He would tell him his soulmate had a monster in him, just like him. He would tell him everything if he had to, so long as he didn’t have to choose between Sasuke and Gaara. Don’t make him choose.

Please, world, don’t make him choose.

He made an educated guess as to where Kakashi-sensei would be and hurried there. Shikamaru followed after him after only a moment, stumbling for a second before getting his feet underneath him.

Kakashi-sensei and Gai-sensei would be together, since they’d arrived at the same time. Late sticks with late, after all. Which meant Bushy-Brows would be there. Which meant they were likely near Sakura-chan. And Sakura-chan had told him the day before where she was going to sit, so he could see her cheering for him.

He ran to Sakura-chan’s seat. And there they were.

“Kakashi-sensei!”

Everyone turned to him. There were more there than he’d thought – not just Gai and Bushy-Brows and Sakura-chan, but also Ino and Choji and a bunch of faces from around the village. Most turned away when they realized it was him, the usual loud and brash ninja. But Ino and Choji kept watching. Probably because Shikamaru was panting just beside him.

“Yo,” Kakashi-sensei said, placid and calm as usual. Naruto wanted to shake him. “What’s up?”

“You have to stop this match right away! Please!”

Kakashi’s eye widened.

“That Gaara, he’s different than you think! He’s not normal!” He threw his hands out. “He lives to kill! And if they keep going, then Sasuke is gonna die!”

Kakashi smiled. “Don’t worry about it.”

Naruto sucked in a breath. What?

“There was a reason why we were so late getting here.”

He didn’t understand. How could Naruto possibly explain – with his old classmates here, with everyone about to learn of the Kyuubi and his possession and why they’d shunned him all his life. Shikamaru had just started talking to him like he wasn’t a loser. Sakura-chan had actually cheered for him. The others, Ino and Choji, hadn’t immediately dismissed him, as they once had. The entire crowd had cheered for him. He opened his mouth to admit it and found himself choking on the words.

Say it, say it, say it! If nothing else, say what you know about Gaara!

“Sensei,” Sakura said, “what do you mean, there was a reason you two were late?”

“Hm? You really want to know?”

Naruto stomped his foot, grabbing their attention again. Kakashi and Sakura were in the seats, while he and Shikamaru were still in the back, where the walkway led into the stands. He gripped the railing and leaned around, trying to get closer. “I’m telling you, this isn’t the time to be chatting!”

“Just be quiet and watch him. You’ll be surprised.” Kakashi didn’t even look at him anymore. Naruto’s chest burned. He’d been upset when Kakashi had chosen to train Sasuke instead of him, but he’d accepted the man’s explanation that Naruto had to relearn the basics when he failed the first test that closet-pervert had given him. But here, now, he thought there was far more to it than that. He’d gotten the feeling that everyone paid more attention to Sasuke than him – which, didn’t they always? Wasn’t that always the case? – but it had only gotten stronger lately, and he didn’t know why. As he got stronger, everyone turned further and further away from him. Why? What did he have to do to prove he was one of them?

He got closer despite himself. He thought he was going to grab Kakashi-sensei’s arm, drag him away from the battle if he had to. Explain what he’d heard, both in the hospital and in his mind. But instead his gaze caught on the two below him. Gaara was nowhere to be found, but Naruto could guess he was inside that giant ball of sand. Sasuke hopped up the wall of the stadium, his fingers already moving in a streak of signs he hadn’t seen from Sasuke before. Lightning flashed around his hand.

Kakashi-sensei hadn’t just been training Sasuke to become stronger. He’d taught him a new technique, as well.

Bushier-brow-sensei turned to Kakashi-sensei. “Don’t tell me that’s…”

“The reason I took Sasuke under my wing,” Kakashi-sensei said, “is because he’s very similar to me.”

Similar to him. Took him under his wing. Naruto’s heart thundered in his ears. He couldn’t tell him. He couldn’t give his secret, his desert wind, to Kakashi-sensei.

Then who? Iruka-sensei? Did he even have the kind of clout necessary to do anything? The person with the most say in the village was the Third, but he was up at the top, too far away to be an easy grab. And even if Naruto did manage to get up there in time, would he be able to tell the Third what he knew? Would he be able to admit to Gaara being his soulmate, or to what he knew about Gaara’s strength, in front of everyone? If he couldn’t find it in him to hand the truth over to Kakashi-sensei, why would he hand it over to the kage in charge of Gaara, or any of his men?

No. If he didn’t speak, then he would be forced to watch.

Sasuke moved. He was fast, much faster than Naruto remembered. He ran down the side of the wall and launched himself toward that ball of sand in the middle of the arena. His heart lurched to his throat. “Wh-what? What is that?”

Sasuke’s hand glowed bright blue. Naruto barely heard the others talking – caught only that Kakashi-sensei had been the one to create the technique Sasuke was using, his heart growing so thick it choked him as he realized that, once again, Kakashi-sensei had left him behind – before Sasuke punched through the ball of sand all the way to his elbow.

If it weren’t for his heart cramping his throat, he might have screamed.

Gaara!

He gripped the railing so tightly it should have broken. The only thing that kept him from launching himself over the edge of the stands was the sound, still playing calmly in his mind, of his wind sliding over shifting dunes. Still, there was no way Gaara had gotten out of that unscathed. How injured was he? Was it serious? He wasn’t so injured that he might die, was he?

A scream rent the air. Naruto jumped. “I’m bleeding!” he heard, unmistakably Gaara’s voice. More and more screams, less and less sane as they followed after one another. Sasuke grunted, suddenly pushing against the ball of sand with his free hand as he wrenched his other back out.

Something came with it.

Sasuke jumped away from the thing, clutching his arm as he gained distance. Something… something unnatural… wriggled outside of the ball. The sand cascaded down, releasing Gaara from within. Gaara clutched his shoulder, breathing heavily. Blood stained his fingers, his clothes. But it didn’t seem to be a serious wound. Naruto felt a nonsensical flood of relief lift the weight in his gut. His heart finally started to settle. Feather filled the arena, burst into bloom in the air. He stared in confusion. Why were there feathers…?

His eyes slipped closed.

* * *

It hurt. It hurt!

He’d never felt anything like this before. Was this what Yashamaru had spoken of when he’d been injured? Was this what bruises and scrapes felt like? His blood soaked his clothing, poured along the lines of his fingers, soaked into the wrinkles of his knuckles and under his nails. He stared at it as Kankuro and Temari hurried him away from the stadium. He reached up to clutch his head. The blood on his hand congealed in his hair, turned it into clumps, saturated the sand still covering his skin. He groaned.

“Hold on,” Temari said. He knew the instant he’d been pulled away from the stadium entirely; the sound of the desert cut out like a switch had been thrown, leaving only the whistling wind. He sucked in a deep breath.

As much as he despised that sound, he couldn’t help but recognize how the lack of it tore through his mind. The demon clawed its way closer, rumbling at the lack of its sound. He dug his fingers in until his nails bit into the flash of his skull. His hair squished with the blood caking it.

Shukaku roiled inside him. Roared. Gaara shuddered.

He couldn’t hear the sand, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. It screamed at him and dragged him into darkness.

* * *

He’d woken to Sakura-chan’s face and the shouts and screams of battle.

He didn’t even know what was going on. Not really. Kakashi-sensei had given him, Sakura-chan, and Shikamaru a mission – one they had to take with a talking dog? – a mission to “stop Sasuke.” Sakura had managed to explain everything by the time they reached Konoha’s outer liits, but all that did was raise new concerns. Sasuke, running off alone after the three sand genin – after Gaara – and Gaara injured and mumbling to himself.

But Naruto knew he probably wasn’t mumbling to himself at all. There was someone else in there who could be listening, after all.

Dammit! Kakashi-sensei should have listened to him!

They managed about four steps past Konoha’s outer walls before they were chased, and their number dwindled down to three. They hadn’t even caught up to Sasuke – to Gaara – before Shikamaru was lost to them.

And? His mind whispered, over and over again, seething at the back of his head. If they did catch up, and Sasuke was with Gaara? What would he do?

He gritted his teeth.

* * *

Gaara woke from the darkness to the feel of hands on him. He stiffened, nearly attacked, until he realized he was being moved. No one had ever bothered trying to kidnap him. He opened his eyes. Trees zoomed past his vision, his body held by thin arms and steel muscles. The insistent thump as something heavy and metallic hit his gourd was the final clue. “Let me down, Temari.”

She looked at him. He knew she did, because she shifted as she held him, just before she landed on a thick branch and settled them. He clutched his head as she let go, the roar in the back of his mind growing more insistent by the second. The demon snapped and snarled in his head. He snarled. “Temari, get away from here.” She made a useless, confused noise. He smacked her out off the branch. “Just hurry up and get out of here! You’re in the way!”

He glared. Just a single tree away, on a higher branch than he, stood Uchiha Sasuke. The _friend_ of his soulmate. The one he’d thought would be his other half, the same twisted, hateful monster he was. But no. He’d gone to confirm what he’d heard in the hospital, only to hear nothing but wind and silence when he’d faced the man. If it had been him, everything would have been easier. If it had been him…

The beast raged. He grabbed his head with both hands as it clawed, no longer at the edges but at the forefront, demanding. He clenched his eyes shut.

If it had been him, if he’d heard that sand when he’d gone to see Uchiha Sasuke – if the man had been in the hospital at the same time as that blond, and it had been _him_ instead – everything would have been perfect. Strong, confident, with eyes that said he lusted for death, for retribution against those who had wronged him – he was the exact thing Gaara had expected. A monster like him. It would have been perfect. He could have killed the man and been rid of the wind and sand permanently.

He managed to open a single eye, managed to make out the distinct shape of black on black on skin. This man was what he wanted to kill. Just like when he’d been a child and put knife to skin, only for the sound of sand to sizzle over him. This was who he was meant to meet. A man just like him, given everything he’d wanted – given _his soulmate_ as his partner – this man had managed to escape what he deserved for too long. Gaara would give it to him. He would give him death, take from him what he should never have had. Take it all – the power, the fame, the bonds, his very life. And when he did, the world would make sense again. There would be meaning to his existence again.

He screamed.

When Shukaku came over him, there was no similar feeling in the universe. It was as a miasma flew on a sudden gust of wind, so thick one could do nothing but choke. He was used to it by now, but that didn’t make the rush any less intense, the sensation any less all-consuming. He felt the sand react to a will beyond his own. But it flowed with the same single purpose as him: to kill the man before him. He grinned. Sand flowed, covered him, spilled into the crevices of the bark below him. Spittle dripped down his chin.

He charged.

His prey jerked, its eyes widening – becoming aware of the predator it had attempted to turn on just a little too late.

He’d demanded a death match from this man, this person who wanted to prove the worth of his existence through anothers’ death. Those eyes had said he’d agreed. But all it took was a single attack, a single thrust of one arm, a couple felled trees, for Uchiha Sasuke to run and hide. The very thought of it was enough to make him scream. “Are you afraid of me?!” he called. He could sense where the man was. He knew he hid behind a tree, as if there was ever any hope of such a weak shield protecting him. “Do you fear my existence?”

When Shukaku was this loud in his head, it always nearly drowned out the sound of the wind. He heard little else but the sand and the screams, felt nothing but hate and hunger. When he was like this, the only color he cared about was red.

“Have both your hatred and your intent to kill wavered because of your fear? If this the pitiful extent of your existence? If you want an answer, then _come on!”_ He shouted out something unlike the Shukaku’s roar, his hands flung wide.

If he killed this man, what would his dear, precious soulmate do? That fool who hadn’t understood Gaara’s strength from the start, that child who spoke of monsters and chummed it up with a look of dopey happiness in his eyes… that idiot couldn’t hope to understand this sensation. This feeling of pain and fury and anger that bubbled beneath the surface of one’s skin at all times, too thick and viscous to bleed out, too raw and wild to be tamed. Why did the sand choose that simpleton when there was the perfect person right here?

That ominous chirping sound crackled, and then Sasuke finally came at him. But when he pushed off from his own branch and moved to strike, that hand moved, faster even than that Lee boy’s, and in midair, Sasuke altered his trajectory. Just enough. Gaara felt the rip along the sand covering his arm as if it was truly connected to him. The shock of it tore up and down his arm, made every nerve ending vibrate until his arm shuddered spastically. He laughed.

Just that morning, he wouldn’t have known what this feeling was. He’d never felt it before. Yet now, finally, with this one, he could tell what it meant.

Since Yashamaru, he’d recognized that the feeling he always carried in his chest meant he was alive. Killing those who put it there, in any way, proved he continued his existence. It was something those who didn’t know the constant burn couldn’t understand. If everyone in the world brought that pain, then everyone in the world needed to die. And when they did, he could say, unequivocally, that he existed for a reason: to end that feeling. To end _them_. If he existed to hurt, then so did they.

This one had hurt him more than any other. He had managed what even Yashamaru hadn’t. For the first time in his life, he had spilled blood like the rest of them. As if he was anything like them at all.

He wanted to feel Sasuke’s blood on his sand. He wanted to feel the man’s heart in his hand before he crushed it. If he did, what would it look like? Taste like? How would his soulmate react?

That face of horror, fear, hate. It would drown out the desert wind. He was certain of it.

He laughed as the sand curled around him, lifted. He could feel it along his side, streaming from his gourd behind him. “More! I want more of this!” This man would provide entertainment enough, but afterward, when he dragged the parts remaining back to the village and dumped them in front of that idiotic blond? When he saw that face contort in true pain, in true hate? When he finally understood what being a monster entailed?

He roared and launched forward again. “Ready for me?!”

The boy wasn’t.


	4. To Rid Oneself of Sand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The true battle starts.

Naruto knew when they were catching up long before the dog said anything, because that shushing wind flowed around the cracks of the sand in his mind. He hurried his pace just as the dog mentioned how close they were.

Sasuke’s advance had stopped several minutes ago. Naruto could only imagine what that meant. He’d had a lot of time to consider his options while they hurried to Sasuke’s side. About what he might find, and what he might have to do. His decision had been a simple one.

Protect. But don’t kill.

He didn’t know how well he’d be able to pull that off. But if he did anything less, then he wouldn’t be able to hold his head up high. He would stick to what he’d told Kakashi-sensei all those months ago, no matter what. That was his ninja way.

The feel of chakras just before them coalesced into actual sight as they finally reached Sasuke. Naruto, having pulled out the instant he’d heard that wind, raced ahead before he even took in the sight. He’d already known what he would be finding. If Sasuke had stopped, it was because he’d found Gaara. And if the two of them had met up – especially without the jounin to stop the battle from going too far – then Sasuke would be in trouble. So it didn’t surprise him to see Sasuke prone on one of the thicker branches of the ancient trees, clutching his shoulder, as Gaara moved in for the kill.

He kicked Gaara in the face.

The urge inside him rose for a second, as if being so close turned the calm sands into something almost like rage. He barely managed to land properly as the feeling rushed over him. He sucked in several gasping breaths as his limbs shook. Something deep inside him demanded he move forward. He clutched his chest. Even though Gaara looked like that – one arm turned and twisted into something nearly unrecognizable, one eye bright yellow, an unnatural, thick tail sprouting from his back – the sand called him to go to his soulmate. To the monster his soulmate was.

Sakura landed beside Sasuke, immediately going to his aid. Naruto could hear Sasuke hacking up blood from behind him. Whatever had happened between these two within the small span of time they’d been fighting, it had been enough to take Sasuke down to that level. His heart thundered. He’d seen Sasuke move in the arena. If he couldn’t stand up to Gaara like this, then how could Naruto? He looked back to see Sakura bending over Sasuke, trying to help him.

“You,” Gaara said, and Naruto turned to that voice. That wide, maniacal grin. “I wanted you to see this.”

His lungs stopped working.

There was only one way to interpret that. Gaara wanted Naruto, his soulmate, to see. He knew. He knew, and he didn’t care.

But Naruto did.

He turned to Sakura. “Let’s run! Come on!”

Gaara flew past him.

He barely had time to breathe out in shock as the redhead shrieked for Sasuke’s death. He tensed, ready to jump, already knowing he would be too late.

Sakura placed herself between Sasuke and Gaara.

“Sakura-chan!” He already knew what was going to happen. Gaara slammed her into the trunk of the tree with his unnatural arm. Sakura bounced thickly against its bark, let one one short scream, and went silent.

 _Protect_.

He jumped back to Sasuke. Gaara grabbed his head as if it hurt. It gave Naruto just enough time to wrap Sasuke’s arm around his shoulders and get away. Sakura, however, was still trapped within Gaara’s hold. And with both Sasuke and Sakura injured, there was no longer an opportunity to run. Naruto paled. He put Sasuke down, unable to help feeling the trembling in his rival’s limbs. Sasuke wasn’t going to be able to help. Hell, Sakura-chan had just protected him. There was no way Sasuke would have let her do that if he’d had the strength to stand, let alone fight.

But even though they were in this situation, Naruto didn’t think he stood a chance against Gaara. He’d seen the genin’s power and his bloodlust both. Even as he clenched his fists, he found them trembling. What was he supposed to do? With out running as an option, fighting was the only thing. But even if he could, it was the last thing he wanted to do. And if he _did_ fight, he would be the only one doing so without the intention to kill. He knew it because that look… that look was the one he’d seen before. _Help me feel alive!_

 _Protect. But don’t kill_. He set his jaw and stood.

* * *

Six years ago, Gaara had learned what love was for him. Love was a quixotic ideal more suited to those who lived in some utopian fantasy. Despite everyone hearing soulmates, despite those sounds delineating between countries and borders, people still fought and killed. A soulmate was someone who could make you hesitate on the battlefield. They were not people who would accept or cherish you, but would use your moment of weakness to cut you down.

Yashamaru had tried to use his pain and despair as his final weapon before blowing himself up on that rooftop. Countless others had once thought to try to get close to him in order to wedge that foul sense of hopelessness in his chest. He knew better. Don’t accept anything, and you won’t get hurt.

Yet, despite knowing that, still he’d somehow hesitated in that hospital. Because of nothing more than the knowledge that this blond, this one human being, was supposed to be some perfect match to him. Someone who would love and accept him for who he was.

But he knew better. He could see the genin now, those eyes wide as saucers as he took in his situation – his female friend locked against the tree by his hand, Uchiha Sasuke on the branch with him, that orange-clad body tucked before him in a defensive stance, completely useless as Sasuke shuddered in the throes of pain. That look was one that said it knew what Gaara wanted, and knew that Gaara would have it. This person’s attention was on _them_ , on the girl, on Sasuke, the one like him who inexplicably had people standing in front of him, defending him…

“What’s the matter?” Gaara asked. Spit flew from his lips. “I thought you were going to run away!”

There was a look on that face Gaara hadn’t seen before. Something like anger, mixed up in that fear in a way he couldn’t describe. Most people hated him because he scared them. This one seemed more angry than afraid. As if the fear meant little compared to the fury.

He looked at the girl. Sasuke. “Who are they to you?”

“Th-They’re my friends!” he said. There was no pleading. The blond pointed at him. “If you try to touch them again, I’ll slaughter you!”

Gaara narrowed his eyes. Squeezed. The girl screamed. The blond jerked where he stood. “Well?” he growled. “Weren’t you going to slaughter me?” The blond’s teeth clicked together. “Come on, then.”

The kid cursed. His shoulders hunched. Despite what he’d just said, the attack, when it came, was so slow, so pathetic, Gaara simply bashed the blond to the side with his tail. He fell on his side on a leafy branch. Gaara watched as he got up quickly, his gaze turning immediately to the girl. He had no idea why watching him do that made him angry. Gaara watched the brat perform a few hand symbols and bite his thumb. A tiny frog came out and started talking down to the kid. He watched in half amazement as, in the middle of a battle, the kid started arguing with the animal.

 _This_ was his soulmate. An idiot who chose friends, who denied himself power, for the idea of companions. He hadn’t learned.

Gaara would be the one to teach him.

Sand coated his other arm, dripping down his elbow over his hand, thicker and heavier than the sand armor by over a foot. He let go of the girl. A little more. Goad his soulmate into action. Why? Why couldn’t he just finish the idiot off now, when he was stupidly fighting with an amphibian?

He roared. He knew why. It disgusted him. He fought only for himself! “Take me down! If you don’t, the girl will never be freed. In fact, it will slowly constrict until she dies!”

More hate and fear, and yet the boy didn’t move. He just kept staring into Gaara’s eyes. Not many had dared do so for even a few short moments. This one, clearly even more stupid than Gaara had originally believed, stared without end. There was also far less fear than Gaara would have expected. Whatever was in that bright blue gaze, it was something far deeper than terror.

He hated it.

He condensed small, tiny packs of sand into hard lengths and, with a single sweep, hurled them out toward the blond. With plenty of time to dodge, the idiot instead grabbed his little toad companion and curled up, taking the shuriken full to his flesh. He nearly flew across the thick branches of Konoha’s ancient trees. He shouted at the boy, screamed at him to fight. And yet, even with his clothes battered, even with his friends suffering, Uzumaki Naruto continued to stare at him with those eyes. “Fight me!” Gaara shrieked. “Show me your power, just like when you defeated Hyuga! I’ll grind that power into dust!” He grinned. “If you don’t, I’ll kill the girl.”

Just like before, his words got the boy moving. He came the same as before, with a leap that could have been blocked by a half-hearted slap. But before he did, the boy placed his hands together. After the battle against the Hyuga, he could easily recognize what that sign meant. Shadow clones – bringing the number to ten, he saw, his gaze roaming over them quickly – all came at him from the front. He inhaled deeply. Sand mixed in the air, blossomed wide in his belly. The boy brought the sound of a sandstorm to his mind? It was only fair he understood what a sandstorm meant.

Gaara burst the sandy wind out with a deep bellow. One long, single scream, and the real body slammed against a tree. The clones burst into small clouds of chakra as they fell.

He grinned. Laughed. Yes. This was the feeling he lived for.

Gaara toyed with him. Over and over again, the blond stood, and over and over again, Gaara slammed him back, against a tree trunk, across branches, once nearly down to the forest floor, before the blond got caught on the end of a branch. Gaara waited for the genin to pull himself back up before knocking him down with his shuriken once more.

Soulmate. Soulmate. The person who matched his soul perfectly. Someone who would love him. A ridiculous, impossible lie, one granted him by a man who only pretended to care. He’d thrown out such lies when he found Yashamaru on the other end of those blades. When he’d chiseled his sand into his forehead and written his mother’s totem on his skin.

Naruto stood again. His arms hung by his sides, his breath came in short pants, but he stood, those eyes glaring at him so strongly it ignited a fury within him he’d never known. He’d wanted to see this man succumb to darkness, succumb to the knowledge that there was nothing he could do. To either let his friends die, or to lose them and face Gaara…

No. He wasn’t certain what he wanted anymore. He’d made a million excuses, but in the end, all Gaara wanted was for the noise in his head to stop. No more sand. No more soulmate. No more being reminded of things that he’d once wanted.

No more!

This time when his shuriken slashed through that orange jumpsuit and embedded into that skin, the blond flipped over himself before skidding across the rough bark of the tree limb. Gaara clenched his massive hands. Something in the blond’s eyes had changed. There hadn’t been a will to fight before. Now there was.

Yes. There it was. There wasn’t a human on this earth who was capable of loving him. He’d known it from the start.

Finally, his precious little soulmate fought back. It was more doppelgangers, but by now, Gaara recognized it as a staple to the man’s fighting style. Quantity, he thought, over quality. He used a single hand to grab up the clones Uzumaki Naruto had made. He was surprised to see that, behind the three he’d just caught, another held a fifth in his hands and threw him. He grinned and grabbed him, too, only to watch the blond create yet another and launch himself off the sudden kage bunshin. He turned. Another, used to launch himself at Gaara’s back. He grimaced and hardened his sand as much as possible. “Take this!” Naruto said. “Kakashi-sensei’s specialty – Konoha’s most sacred technique! One thousand years of pain!”

This was his soulmate, he thought, something lighting up inside him. Someone who knew such a special technique, who had already mastered it–

The blond stuck a kunai up Gaara’s butt.

Up Gaara’s sand-covered butt.

 _This was his soulmate_.

He smacked the shit in the face with his tail.

A sizzling sound came from his ass. He barely had enough time to twist his neck around, to make out the small trail of smoke, before the kunai exploded.

Shrapnel embedded into the sand, burst out in clumps from the blast. The cohesive composite that made up his arms and tail blew apart. Sand gushed like a waterfall from his arm and the side of his face. Unbelievable. Had he known? Had he somehow known that Gaara’s weakest point was just beneath his tail? Or had he merely gotten lucky?

He could still recover. He could easily take this idiot out. All that work, all those wounds, and he’d managed only a single hit. A good hit, just as good as the ones the Uchiha had given. The blond wasn’t nearly as weak as he’d originally thought. But that didn’t make him strong.

There was no such thing as strength that came from caring for other people. All that did was make someone weak and vulnerable and helpless. And people always, _always_ took advantage of that.

But not with him. He was smart enough to learn his lesson. People hurt others. They attacked them. Love wasn’t something that existed for others. This whole idea of protecting those who were precious to them – it was a farce. There was something more to it. Something they could get from those people. But no one got anything from him. No one took, no one claimed, no one owned. No one betrayed. Love was something that could only exist for oneself. One could only protect oneself. Recognizing that, and living only for oneself, made him stronger than anyone!

The sudden surge of chakra from his soulmate caught him by surprise. He watched the chakra swirl in a tight sphere around the blond as he shouted out his intention to protect everyone around him. Instead of a handful of shadow clones like before, the limbs of the trees around them were filled to bursting with images of his soulmate, each sporting their own chakra, each preparing to attack him. “All right, all of you!” one Naruto said, and raised his hand. “Time to move!” He threw his hand forward. “Go!”

Gaara gritted his teeth. For all that he _could_ recover, he hadn’t yet had the time. The best he could do was shield himself. He placed his good arm before him as countless clones threw shuriken at him. The blades barely sank in before he realized the number of clones that had taken advantage of his new position. All around him, on every side, was clone after clone after clone. Each ducked low and placed a single hand on the ground before kicking up. Then he was in the air.

With nowhere to go and no way to dodge, he was left taking hit after hit as he flew, his sand barely covering the damage as it slowly drifted apart around his body. His body still reacted to the blows, pushed in whichever direction the punch indicated, until finally two fists connected solidly with his chin, and he went flying back. He landed far below the tree limbs, down on the ground. His sand still encased him, but it was nearly formless and weak. It barely cushioned the blow.

This was not how this was supposed to happen. The sound in his head was louder than ever, mixing with the sound of sand sifting to the ground around him. His soulmate wasn’t like him. He was supposed to be weak. That was the price of letting one’s life by dictated by a love for others. This show of strength, this beating he’d endured, wasn’t anything like how this was supposed to go. With his fingers clenched, he reared up, forcing his body to move through the sensation of pain – a sensation this boy should never have been able to give him. “I won’t lose to someone like you!” he said, and pulled on Shukaku’s power. He felt the mad rush of joy seize him just as the sand around his body surged out. The clones that had dared try to hit him again popped like balloons.

He could hear screaming. As always when he turned into this, he couldn’t hear the sound of his soulmate. He wanted to say it was calming, a relief to finally find the sound of sandstorms drowned out. But he hated Shukaku’s screams. He would much rather hear the wind that whistled through the village. The fact of which infuriated him even more.

He chased off the demon, even as he rose like a mountain above the forest around him. He saw his soulmate, just a speck on a tree, standing with his black-haired friend as they looked upon his power. He didn’t give them time to react.

The dirt all over the ground around them joined him. His chakra churned the ground, pulled the newly-made sand to his feet so he could unlatch some of his own sand and move it toward Uzumaki Naruto. That sand, unlike the dirt he’d just turned, moved almost to his very thought. He saw the sand wrap around the blond and felt something almost like relief. He would never have these thoughts of love again. He could live in breathtaking silence. No screams. No sand. No howling wind. No nothing.

He couldn’t even imagine what it would be like.

He didn’t get to imagine it.

The moment he tried to crush the blond within his sand, the supposedly weak ninja summoned a giant toad. It burst like an explosion from within the walls of Gaara’s sand coffin, glared its large, yellow eyes at him, and spoke an actual conversation with the blond as if he wasn’t even there.

He narrowed his eyes. He should have been more interested in this one from the beginning. He’d focused on the Uchiha a bit too much, recognizing a darkness within him that mirrored Gaara’s own. Yet the one with more power, the one who managed to injure him, if only to a lesser extent, just as the Uchiha had, the one who showed a power closest to matching his own… well. If he had to have a soulmate, it was beginning to make sense that it was this one.

The frog leaped. He watched, safe within his own sand, as Naruto held tight to the toad’s back, barely managing to maintain his balance. The sand moved slowly, too slowly with him maneuvering it. The toad chopped off one of his arms before he could do more than prepare for the hit. He condensed his sand enough to make the cut difficult, at least. The toad’s enormous tanto went spinning off, finally crashing blade tip first into the ground.

He chuckled. “Interesting.” With little more than a thought, he used his sand as if it was water, letting it push him to the surface. “This is getting fun, _Uzumaki Naruto!”_ He pressed through the top of the sand, right where the tanuki’s head resided. He could hardly see the blond from where he lay, waist-deep within his creation.

He never would have thought he would have to do this for someone like him. Some pissant worm so weak he hadn’t even been able to stand up to Kankuro. Yet here he was, in a position where, if it wasn’t necessary, it certainly seemed worthwhile.

He grinned. Perhaps he should have done this sooner. Just to know his soulmate got to face a real monster for once. Just before he died.

“You’re my soulmate?” he said, and watched the blond’s eyes widen. “Then I suppose I should give you a gift.” He performed the single hand sign and closed his eyes.

When he woke up, his problems would be solved.

* * *

His head snapped to the side. His eyes opened. A blazing fire burned on his left cheek and orange and yellow skittered across his vision. But what got to him the most was the upward surge in the sandstorm in his mind, as if screaming for something it had only gotten a taste of. It pulsed so close to his ears he thought it matched the blood racing through them. It certainly matched his heartbeat.

Uzumaki Naruto had woken him up.

He turned in time to see his soulmate catch themselves on the top of Shukaku’s – of his again, now – head. The blond came at him again.

He _dared_.

Sand could be hard as stone, even without hardening. But it could be weak as water, as unrelenting as a riptide. He loosened the bonds between the grains until, with a lurch, Naruto’s progress was halted. The blond actually acted surprised. He only heard stories about Shukaku fought. The demon never gave up on its form, as if to mark the land indelibly with its footprint. He, however, didn’t need that. He only needed the kill.

He pulled from one of Shukaku’s brows, the sand readily reacting to him once again, the scream in his ind diluting until the sandstorm ripped through it, and suddenly Shukaku was silent within his mind once more. The blond wrenched at his feet, only serving to sink himself further within Gaara’s grasp. The sand surrounded him. The giant toad intervened again, using its long tongue to wrap Naruto in a slimy cocoon. He snarled. “Underestimating me…” The sand around Naruto’s ankles would work as well as any other. He could feel Naruto’s movements against his sand, could easily trace that same sand up the ninja’s legs. The toad, likely sensing what he was doing, retreated its tongue, knowing the uselessness of its efforts now.

His soulmate had faced Shukaku and managed to get close to him anyway. Now it was up to him to end this and rid himself of that face, that wind, that urge to find something that didn’t exist and never could. Weakness called to him. He wouldn’t let it touch him.

Still, his enemy looked away from him, back – back toward where they’d all started this battle. Back to where his friends lay helpless to Gaara’s assault. When he looked back toward Gaara, there was something new there. As if the blond had made some sort of decision. As if he was finally going to fight with Gaara’s life on the line.

This was what he meant. Love was a convenient excuse. It never lasted long enough to truly exist. If he’d let that weakness touch him, he might have faltered. He knew better.

Love was never something given to someone else.

“I’ll kill you,” he said. “Then this lie will end.”

Despite there being little left in him to fight with, the blond somehow found some new fount of chakra. It felt different from the chakra he’d used before; there was a darkness to it, an anger that didn’t belong to the blond – but before he could consider it, the blond blew the sand around his legs away – along with his headband and the zipper of his jacket, both of which popped off to parts unknown – and charged at him. The blond was faster than before, as if the battle so far hadn’t even happened. “Here I come, you dumb tanuki!” the boy shouted, and launched himself. Effectively stopping Gaara from capturing him like before.

“Just die!” Gaara pulled from Shukaku’s ears, from the very sand which held him, in order to stop Naruto’s advance. The sand managed to splash against the boy’s chest – the easiest target – and held him as he neared, right in front of Gaara’s face, that pulled fist nearly ready to be thrown before more sand caught up with the blond’s quick movements and wrap around the wrist. Naruto twisted and pulled, but he was trapped. Gaara stared at those blue eyes as they glared at him. He’d been, in that moment, as fast as Rock Lee, even after this battle. Even after fighting Shukaku. In his mind, the wind whipped the desert’s dunes into a roiling mass, pushing the waves of sand across ever-changing hills.

“Bastard!” the blond cried, and reared his head back. He smashed his head against Gaara’s with all his remaining chakra. It might as well have been a ball of concrete.

Something trickled into his eye. Just like the Uchiha, this man had made him bleed.

That screaming within him rose once more, the sound of his soul mixing with Naruto’s until it nearly overwhelmed him. His sand cracked like rock beneath him. He lost the threads of his chakra, just enough for the sand to collapse all around them. He lost his hold on Uzumaki Naruto first. And then, like a Jenga tower, the monstrous form of Shukaku collapsed to the ground, and he fell. For a moment, Uzumaki Naruto fell by his side. Then the next, the man was reaching out for him. Gaara pulled his arm back. When he’d been punched awake, and now again, when the blond had headbutted him, he’d felt something in his chest reach out. He shouldn’t be touched by this man. He knew that in this instant, in a way he’d not known anything else. As if the knowledge surged within his very skin.

Naruto’s summoned toad disappeared in a flash of smoke, thankfully pushing the blond away before he could reach Gaara. They both flew back. Without his sand, he wasn’t able to properly cushion his fall. He hardly managed to flip himself around in time to land on his feet on top of a tree. His chakra levels failed him then, too; he wobbled for an instant before falling to one knee, barely able to keep himself up. Naruto tumbled before him, barely managing to break his own fall against another tree opposite him, falling flat on his back and bending the thin limbs of his tree for a moment before catching himself, as well. Gaara saw himself reflected within the edge of the toad’s tanto. For a moment, it almost looked as if he was only half of himself; beyond the tanto’s edge, he could see the blond, nearly mirroring him, both of them struggling to catch their breaths. It looked like Gaara was half of Naruto, and Naruto half of him. Inside him, the wind whistled, blowing sand out like leaves. He could feel it like a living thing. It yearned.

“This time,” Uzumaki Naruto said, his words bridging the gap between them as the tanto disappeared, back to wherever the toad had gone. “I really am completely empty. You, too, right?” Gaara set his teeth. “One more punch is all I’ve got left.” As if he could exactly measure how much energy was left inside him. Perhaps, as with the insane levels of chakra he could produce, he could measure his limits when he came up empty. “You and I, we’re the same. In this, as well as everything else. Let’s make this it!”

They weren’t the same. If they were… if they had been, then he would have noticed it from the start. He would have known! Just because they were soulmates didn’t mean they were anything alike!

He launched himself forward. Naruto, he noticed, did the same, at the exact same time. As if choreographed, they moved as one. Gaara was well aware that there was little in him left to fight. His sand lay scattered around the ground. But if he gave himself just a few minutes, he would gain more chakra again. Calling Shukaku out always nearly left him empty, but when the demon backed down enough…

If he could just hold out long enough…

He punched. Naruto punched faster.

Once again, the sound within his mind – within his soul – cried out at his soulmate’s touch. He crashed to the forest floor, flat on his back, his mind jarred into near-numbness at the squealing need within him. It was different from the screams of Shukaku, but no less insistent. His entire chest trembled at the weight of it. He looked over to the blond. He’d fallen on his stomach, no more able to catch himself than Gaara, despite having managed the faster blow. It wasn’t a surprise that the blond had gotten him first. Gaara had never been the fastest. His sand had always been too heavy, and he’d had to rely more on power and defense. Still, to know he’d been brought so low by someone he’d initially disregarded. He felt the odd pride bubble up inside him once again, as he took in the person who’d been linked to his soul. He recalled that odd chakra that the blond had called up at the end of their battle, darker and angrier than the usual feel of determination Naruto’s chakra had carried before. A monster. The blond had said he carried one, as well. He’d simply discarded the information, still underestimating Naruto’s power. But, of all the people he’d met, this one was the first to not just injure him, but deplete his chakra. He faced, for the first time, the idea of defeat.

Only monsters had the strength to defeat monsters.

He let the pink-haired girl free from his trap.

The blond barely managed to so much as open his eyes. Still, when he did, they stared unflinching at him. Those fingers twitched. Those feet shook. And when those limbs failed to cooperate with the blond, he started crawling with his chin toward Gaara.

He clenched his hands. This one – “you won’t take my existence from me! I won’t let you!”

Love only oneself! Stand only on your own! If you hold on to the idea of receiving love from others, all you’ll feel is pain and disappointment. Scars that never show and never heal. No matter how loud the sound of their entwined souls, he knew the truth. He tried to push himself up and failed. Where the hell was his sand? Why couldn’t he call it back?! Was this what it felt like to run out of chakra? How could people stand to feel this helpless?

Naruto kept inching his way closer, the sound of his pained gasps filling the empty air around them. The boy pulled himself forward inch by agonizing inch, but it was working. He was making progress. “Don’t come near me!” he snapped, suddenly terrified of what might happen if the blond touched him again. Couldn’t he feel what was happening? How their souls seemed to pull toward one another? Gaara fought desperately, but it was all he could do to lift his head. His body sparked in pain. Something he’d never had cause to recognize before that day. Something he couldn’t imagine ignoring and moving forward the way Uzumaki Naruto did.

“That pain…” He stared wide-eyed as Naruto looked at him again. Those angry eyes were gone, suddenly, as if they’d never been. As if… as if he felt it, same as Gaara, and accepted it. There were even tears in those eyes. “That agony of being all alone. It’s so hard to endure. I didn’t know why then… maybe I don’t now. But… your pain… I understand it so well.”

Understood?

He carried a monster, too. Just like Gaara. He was supposed to be different – he _was_ different. But the villagers in Konoha couldn’t be so different from the ones in Suna. So how? Why?

“But,” Naruto said, “I’ve got people who care about me now.” Meaning he hadn’t, once. “Those people are important to me. I won’t let you hurt them.” Those eyes shifted. That same dark chakra seemed to take over his gaze. Pulling once more on the strength of the monster inside of him. In order to protect others? Why?

“I swore that I would never kill my soulmate,” Naruto said. “And I won’t.” Gaara jolted. “But I’ll stop you, even if I have to break every bone in your body!”

“Why?” he asked, his lips moving almost of their own accord as Naruto pulled himself another scant inch forward. He could feel that dark aura around him. A monster like him, fighting for the sake of others. And inside of him, the dunes moved, forced to accede defeat at the relentless demand of the wind. “Why should you care about others?”

“They saved me,” he said, the answer simple, “from my pit of loneliness. And they understand me. I couldn’t live without them.” _Couldn’t live without them._ “I love them.”

Yashamaru had once said that the desire to protect those one loved made a person strong. But Yashamaru had also been the one to teach him that loving others brought only pain. But if those others loved him back? What then?

“Love,” he murmured. He’d only known it as something given to others. Yet this man refused to consider killing him, even though he’d harmed his precious people. He even cried for him. He felt the sandstorm pick up as Naruto struggled to come near and… wondered. He’d wanted to end that sound, because it meant something he couldn’t let himself imagine. Was that… wrong?

This one beat him because, even if he was weak, he couldn’t let himself lose. He wanted to keep others alive, and so his life meant little. And in his decision to not kill Gaara, he’d also allowed himself the idea of injuring himself so badly he didn’t survive. So long as those others did… that was what mattered. Gaara couldn’t do that. If he died, then he was gone. There would be no one to remember him. To mourn him. Because of that, his life was paramount.

For a split second, he let himself imagine what it would be like to have Naruto stand beside him the way he’d stood beside his other loved ones. The thought brought a new kind of pain, one he’d never felt before. The pain reached deep inside him, down to where those sounds resided.

If Naruto stood beside him and risked his life for him – if Naruto, if _anyone_ , were willing to risk their lives for him – then would he know what it was like to become so strong he won, even at the cost of his own life?

A memory came to him, unbidden, of those days before he’d learned of Yashamaru’s hatred for him. Back then, he’d wanted so desperately to meet his soulmate. Chasing that wind to its end had been his dream. Danger, death, pain – he’d thought it would all culminate in something beautiful. Eventually, he’d told himself. Eventually, he would find someone who loved him. He watched Uchiha Sasuke arrive beside Naruto and kneel beside him. “You can stop now, Naruto,” the Uchiha said, and touched his shoulder. For him, that simple touch was the easiest thing in the world. “Sakura’s safe. The sand around her is gone. Gaara has no more chakra to maintain it.”

“Oh,” Naruto said, and just like that, the fight went right out of him. “That’s good.” And the blond went to sleep. Right there. His loved ones were safe, and so, just like that, his quarrel with Gaara was over.

The sandstorm inside him settled some, though it still urged him forward. As if he could move. The Uchiha could barely do more than lean toward his friend before Kankuro and Temari showed up. They took immediate defensive positions in front of Gaara, and he just… accepted it. Something that he’d always hated, something he’d denied over and over again. Here, now, it didn’t seem like something worth pushing away. “It’s fine,” he said, his voice quiet. Still, his siblings turned to him. “I quit.”

He didn’t bother looking at them. Somehow, he knew how they would respond. Sure enough, Temari covered them as Kankuro leaned down and helped him up. A quick, easy acquiescence to his desire. He let Kankuro carry him away, until the feel of the sandstorm quit tugging quite so viciously. After a few minutes, the sand cut away completely, and he was left with only the sound of the wind once more. He closed his eyes to it.

Perhaps… someday…


	5. His Own Path

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto will not take this lying down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a little early for Gaara's birthday. Happy birthday, Gaara!

After the Third’s funeral, the perverted sage offered to teach Naruto while letting him travel around. Naruto’s answer had been simple.

“If I’m not going to Sunagakure, then I’m not going anywhere.”

The pervert had lifted a single brow. “You want revenge? They’ve already told us that Orochimaru had killed their Kazekage and used them against us. They surrendered.”

Naruto shook his head. “No! I don’t care about revenge!” He curled his fingers into a fist and thumped his chest. “My soulmate. I know who he is. And I’m gonna go find him. This time – this time things will be different! If it’s just him and me, and there’s no one I have to protect – things will definitely go better!”

Jiraiya frowned. “You found your soulmate? And it was one of the Suna nin?”

Naruto hadn’t told anyone. He’d thought about telling the Third, but – well. And Iruka-sensei had enough to deal with in taking care of Konohamaru. Of the two of them, Konohamaru needed Iruka-sensei more. He could already imagine Sasuke’s response – not like Sasuke could help him with it or anything – but Sasuke would mimic Kakashi-sensei’s words. And Sakura-chan was still recovering. She didn’t need anything else on her plate – though, again, he didn’t know that Sakura-chan could help him. As for Kakashi-sensei… well. Naruto didn’t want to hear that he should be prepared to have to kill Gaara. He hadn’t needed to, and he wouldn’t do it. He’d managed to stick to his decision and protect everyone. That meant Kakashi-sensei had been wrong.

Besides. This was something he had to do himself.

Gaara had spent so long being alone. Naruto should have been ready for reticence. (Though he gave himself some slack, because no one could be ready for their soulmate to try to kill their teammate and also them, no matter what Kakashi-sensei said.) Naruto wouldn’t let his soulmate go back to that loneliness. He would be the one to pull him out of it, even if he had to drag the redhead kicking and screaming. So long as he didn’t have his friends around to protect, he was certain he had a chance.

Probably. Maybe.

He lifted his fist high. “I’ve been looking for him my whole life! I’m not gonna let one measly fight get in the way of that!”

Jiraiya crossed his arms. “Is that right?” He tapped his foot. “You do know you’re talking about a guy, right? How do you even know it was him and not some woman walking past?”

Naruto shook his head. “I know! Every time I saw him, I heard it.” He tapped his chest. “My soul. And it makes sense. He even fights with sand!”

Jiraiya jerked back as if struck. “What? Wait – are you saying Gaara of the Sand is your soulmate?”

Oh. Naruto had forgotten that he’d never told Jiraiya what sound he heard. He nodded, a bit slower now. He shuffled on his feet. If this were Kakashi-sensei, or Sasuke, or even Iruka-sensei, he would be in for a lecture on… something. Getting his hopes up? Wanting to enter a country they’d just fought with? Wanting to meet a boy who’d just tried to kill him? Instead the perverted sage just stared down at him for a long while, eyes unblinking, and suddenly burst out laughing. The old man pointed at him. “You’re linked to that mini psycho idiot? Ha ha! Birds of a feather!”

“Hey! Don’t call him that!” Naruto said, stomping his foot and leaning up to get into Jiraiya’s face. Jiraiya glared back down at him. “I mean, yeah, he’s creepy, and yeah, he’s scary, but I know why! He’s just like I used to be! But if I go to him and make him my friend, then he won’t be alone anymore, and he can be happy. So don’t call him names, or I’ll beat you up!”

“Humph! I’d like to see you try!” But Jiraiya stopped looming over him and crossed his arms again. “Fine,” the old man said after several long moments. “I’ll let us take a short detour to Sunagakure. But only for a short time! We need to put getting a new Hokage on priority! Without one, we’ll be seen as weak by the other countries. After this disaster, one more could destroy Konoha entirely. Do you think your soulmate is as important as that?”

Naruto sulked. It was true that Konoha was in ruins from the gate to the mansion, and that alone could spell disaster for the village if their enemies thought it an easy entry point. Without the Hokage to assure the other villages – and Konoha’s own citizens – the morale break would dull the senses of Konoha’s shinobi. They would react just that little bit slower, and in those short instances, their enemies would strike them down. A strong Hokage would show they still had power on their side.

But all that… didn’t mean that his own quest wasn’t important. It may have only been a single soul, but that soul was his mate’s. To him, saving Gaara was just as important as saving Konoha.

He nodded. He would save both of them. If he couldn’t do it, then he should just give up on being Hokage. Hokage protected their loved ones – all of them. Their family, their friends, and their soulmates.

He ran to the North Gate. “Come on, already!” he shouted back as Jiraiya-sensei simply watched him go. “You’re wasting time!”

Jiraiya chuckled. “Squirt.” He charged forward. Somehow, even on those stupid sandals, the fogey pervert flew ahead of him. “Don’t underestimate me!”

“Agh! Wait up!”

* * *

Since before he could remember, he’d listened tot he sound of the wind in his ears and dreamed. Dreamed of meeting his soulmate – someone who would take one look at him and smile. Someone who would love him. Back then, the sound of the wind had been the most soothing melody he’d ever heard.

When had he forgotten?

He’d been ordered to rest in his private house, even though he had healed perfectly well on the trip back to Sunagakure. While he’d never had cause to learn first aid before, Temari and Kankuro had, especially as they’d had to learn how to patch themselves up after he let out his rage on them. Yet despite his obvious convalescence, he’d been ordered to his house and discreetly locked inside. As if he couldn’t leave the moment he desired to do so.

For the moment, however, he was content to sit and think. When he’d fought Uzumaki Naruto, he’d thought the sound of the desert sands the worst noise he’d ever heard. The winds had been turned into that hideous racket, the sound of the demon’s heart more than his own. And if his heart was the sound of the demon’s sand, then didn’t that simply prove that he was, indeed, a demon himself? Demons were despised. Yet Naruto, somehow, had managed to live with others and gain their love. How? What did he have that Gaara didn’t?

It had been on the trip back that he’d been shown what that difference was between them. As Temari had carried him far enough away that even Uchiha Sasuke would have trouble trying to catch up – and he wouldn’t, he’d tried to tell them; Uchiha Sasuke cared about Uzumaki Naruto and the girl, and he wouldn’t leave the two of them without assistance – she placed him carefully down on the ground and had looked him over. Her hands had shook slightly, but she’d dared lay them on his chest. “I’m going to bandage these wounds,” she’d told him, and reached for the pack at her side. “Don’t move. I don’t want you bleeding too much.”

Bleeding. Something he’d never had to worry about before. Kankuro had watched him with wide eyes. “I still can’t believe this happened,” he said, and looked around them furtively. He unhooked his puppet, which looked to have seen the worst of a battle itself, and sent it out as a sentry. His chakra control was weak; he didn’t seem to have much left. Whatever battle he’d been in, it looked to have gone about as well as Gaara’s own. “Gaara lost. How? Who was that kid?”

“Uzumaki Naruto,” Gaara said, his voice little more than a whisper. Temari’s hands had paused in their ministrations, but she’d quickly returned to her work. She taped a bandage to his head, cleaned up all the cuts and bruises, checked for broken bones and finally gave him an exhausted but clean bill of health. It was as she’d sat back and wiped her brow with the back of her hand that he realized.

Uzumaki Naruto didn’t have anything that Gaara didn’t have. Even now, after everything he’d done, Temari and Kankuro had come to save him, to make sure he wasn’t hurt, and to heal him as best they could. Somehow, for no reason that he could discern, despite their fear, they had chosen to care for him.

He had two people who may potentially love him.

Sitting in his room in his house, he could look back on that one moment – at those two moments, as he’d lost and yet found himself protected by Temari, in a way that he’d only seen others protected before, and then again as Temari took care of him – he’d found himself wondering what it meant to love, and be loved. He hadn’t thought about it since he’d been a child, since he’d looked at the splattered remains of Yashamaru and realized the man had intended to do the same to him. He’d thought love was a false idea then, something that could only exist for oneself. But time and again, he was shown wrong. Until finally, as he looked upon the face of the one he’d tried to kill and saw tears, he’d understood.

Naruto, despite being Gaara’s victim, had cried for him. And, just like the sound of the wind as it rattled against the window and howled through the darkened spaces of his mind, it had shaken something loose within him.

An enemy had never cried for him before.

He moved to his bedroom, though there was no bed and he would never use one if there was. Instead there were chairs – multiple, as if he would ever have guests over at his house. One had been moved to the side of the window long ago, for when he wanted to look outside but didn’t want to be as easily seen as he was when he was on the roof. He went there now, his body moving with the instinct of long practice, and sat. The desert skyline was beautiful above the rooftops. He always stared at it, not even knowing why. Now he thought he knew.

It wasn’t that he’d been looking for something, or waiting. It wasn’t anything poetic or nostalgic. He’d just been enjoying the view, the air, the wind, the long stretch of sand as it fell into that endlessly vast desert sky. He’d never thought of the act as something that brought him happiness, but now he wondered if it didn’t. If someone with a monster inside them could be loved, did that mean they could also be happy? Was it possible for him to be both loved and happy, as well? What would it take to achieve that?

He stared out over the tops of the buildings for what felt like hours, simply soaking in the feeling he’d never let himself experience before. He didn’t feel safe or relaxed, so he couldn’t name the sensation soothing. But he did feel something warm bubble up inside his chest as he watched the sun trek its way above the village. He just couldn’t quite name it.

Someone knocked on his door. The sound startled the demon within him; Shukaku, usually resignedly dormant, pressed close to the walls of his mind as he stood. The demon hadn’t been happy to lose a match, to be forced from its play before it could kill. Gaara stamped it down and walked to the door. Shukaku would have to get used to not getting its way; he didn’t intend to let the demon go ever again.

He stood transfixed at the sight before his door as he opened it. Temari, Kankuro worrying silently at her heels, stood at his doorstep, her lips set in straight, determined line. “Gaara,” she said. She seemed to falter for an instant, but straightened her shoulders. Wordlessly, Gaara stepped aside. Temari blinked wide-eyed for a moment at the show of welcome. Slowly, she stepped inside. Kankuro looked about ready to bolt, but he followed his sister, nonetheless. “I came to check on you,” she said, though she sounded far less certain than she had just a second ago. “To see how you were doing?”

Silence reigned for a moment as he struggled with what to say. His first instinct was to push her away. But that was not how he wanted to do things. He wanted to see if there was something more he could grasp. “I’m fine,” he said. Then, when the silence returned for several long moments, he tried again. His voice halted, nearly stuttered. “The wounds sting, but they’re closing. They itch. I heard that’s normal?”

People had never reacted well to the reminder that he didn’t get hurt. Kankuro looked startled at the question. Temari, however, firmed her lips again and nodded. “It is.” She held out a hand. “Do you have any ointment? It can help, too. I brought some, just in case you didn’t.” She reached into her usual satchel and dug inside. When her hand reemerged, it held a tiny bottle.

The act reminded him strongly of the time in his childhood when he, too, reached out to someone with medicine. He’d been soundly rebuffed – a reminder that people wanted nothing to do with a monster. Yet here his sister was, offering the same thing to him. That odd, fluttery feeling in his chest returned, as if he was once again looking outside his window. He cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he said. The words felt hot and sticky on his tongue. His hand reached slowly, ready at any moment for the offering to be rescinded. If it was, he would tear her limbs from her body.

But it wasn’t. His fingers curled around the bottle, holding the light weight to his palm. And Temari let go. She handed him her ointment and took a single step back. Her gaze swept over the open living room. It was sparsely furnished, with nothing more than a couch and chairs. The furniture was different from when Yashamaru lived with him; Gaara had long ago destroyed anything that could link any memories to his uncle, save the small frame of his mother he kept stored in a single bureau drawer that was never opened. Her lips pressed together so hard they turned into a white line. “I… could clean? If you’d like?”

Kankuro made a small, aborted sound of negation. Gaara looked to the two of them. Of the two, Temari had been the one to show concern over his welfare, and had blocked Uchiha Sasuke’s access to him when he’d been unable to find the strength to stand after his battle. Kankuro had shown little but fear toward him. But that, he realized, might be a bit better than the usual hate. Fear was something he could work with. He looked back to Temari. “There’s little that needs to be cleaned, but…” He hesitated. “You’re welcome to stay. If you’d like.”

The words tasted like sand. He wanted to push them away, to keep himself locked and hidden where no one else could see. But would that get him anything? That would be worse than continuing to kill. He knew loneliness too well to want to be alone. Even when it persisted, the feeling was far more palatable in a crowd.

Temari’s eyes widened. She looked to Kankuro for a second. Gaara saw the minute shake of his older brother’s head. He also saw the way his sister lifted her chin. “We would love to stay,” she said, and made herself at home on his couch.

There was nothing in the way of knick-knacks or entertainment venues; he owned no games, no viewscreens, no cards or dice or anything that might make others’ time with him fun. The very idea of such a thing only came to him now, and he wondered what people did together. He didn’t know. Temari was the one to ask, “do you have anything to drink? I could sent Kankuro out to fetch something if you don’t.”

He shook his head. She turned to Kankuro. “No,” he said quickly, getting her attention with something close to a flinch. “I have tea.”

She smiled. “Would you mind if I had some?”

He went and got the tea.

He only had a few glasses. Glass was abundant in their desert, since they had an abundance of its source material surrounding them. It meant, however, that said glass meshed easily with with his chakra, after so many years infusing it into his sand, crafting grain after grain to respond to his will as if it were a part of his body. His chakra reacted to glass, therefore, in a similar manner; his chakra-infused sand, if it touched the glass, would attempt to make the glass fuse with his chakra, as well. He used steady control to get the glass if he was using his sand – which, he admitted only to himself, was often if he was on the roof or at the window. But now, any such show might remind his two siblings of his power, and this attempt to understand them might be lost before it had a chance to be found. He traveled to the kitchen, pulled out the glasses by hand, and grabbed the pitcher of tea from his fridge.

When he returned from his short trip, Kankuro and Temari were speaking in low tones, both leaning in toward one another, their noses nearly touching. They cut their conversation short at Gaara’s approach. Temari thanked him and took the drink, glaring daggers at Kankuro. He looked to his brother, as well. “You needn’t stay.”

“It’s fine,” Temari said, speaking for the man again. Kankuro barely managed to hide his grimace in time.

Temari sipped the tea, then grinned. “This is good.”

“It’s easily made,” Gaara said, and Temari’s eyes widened. She looked from him to the tea, then back. Her mouth opened as if to say something, but she just closed it and sipped again, her lips lifting in a small smile.

She looked around again after a few moments, then reached over and placed the drink on the floor. He didn’t have any tables for her to put it on. He would have to get something. If this ever happened again. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. He stiffened. If she noticed, she refused to mention it. “During your fight with that boy. Uzumaki Naruto. I wasn’t able to help.”

“There was little you could have done.” He crossed his arms. He couldn’t place the look on her face. Before this moment, he hadn’t cared if it hadn’t been fear. He looked away. “He was strong. Even though he was like me, he was different.”

“Like you?”

It was Kankuro’s first contribution to the conversation. The man looked like he wanted to bite his tongue off for its trespass.

Gaara looked to him from the corner of his eye. The man visibly stilled. “Yes,” Gaara said. “A monster inside him. Created as a creature of power for his village, but hated by those he was expected to fight for.” He looked away, down to his floor. Like most, it was made of tough clay with a softer faux wood to cover. Unlike most, it sported no rugs. “Yet he chose to fight for others. He had found those who accepted him despite what he was.”

Temari leaned forward, her eyes expressive, even though her stance was cautious. “We volunteered to work with you, Gaara. You know that, right?”

“At the Kazekage’s request,” he said. Neither refuted it. Still. He saw something in Temari’s eyes that made him hesitate. “And now?” he asked. “I saw you. When Uchiha Sasuke came, you moved to stand between us.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

Whenever he’d asked others why they’d moved to stop his attacks from hitting a target, he’d always received the same answer. “Why?”

“Because you’re my brother,” she said simply. “And I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”

He looked to Kankuro. The man didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t glaring at Temari anymore. Instead he was watching Gaara, his face inscrutable. As if trying to read him.

No one had stepped in front of him before. In his mind, that moment played and replayed in his head. He recalled the tears in his soulmate’s eyes, the agony in his voice as he admitted to understanding Gaara’s pain. The exhaustion that had taken him the instant Uchiha Sasuke informed him that Gaara had released the girl, and, in the same instant, his sister, jumping in front of him, readying herself to fight if the Uchiha chose to attack.

He took a deep breath. “Do you care about me?”

Temari’s fingers curled into fists on her lap. She looked down at them for a second. He saw them tremble. Still, she lifted her gaze back to his and nodded. “I do.”

“Why?”

She opened her mouth. Paused. Closed it again. Her brows furrowed.

Just as he’d thought.

The blonde shrugged. “It really is simply because you’re my brother. My little brother, who was kept from us when we were growing up. We were prohibited from seeing you, but I always wanted to know what it was like. You know, to have a younger brother who wasn’t such a hot-head.”

“Hey!”

Temari grinned. “See?”

“Because… we’re family.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

She watched him. He didn’t know how to react to that one. It had nothing to do with him; it couldn’t, if the feeling toward him was to be in any way positive. He nodded, accepting the truth. It suited that blood, which he had chased for so long, would be the first trail leading him to his new destination. He eyed Kankuro – his ‘older brother,’ if he was to begin caring about such sentiments. Unlike his ‘older sister,’ he did not seem to care what blood may or may not connect them. Still. He looked back to Temari. He had a starting point. It was more than he’d had the day before.

“I don’t know how to do anything but kill,” he warned her. Her body went carefully still, but she didn’t stop listening or try to run. That look of hate and fear did not cross her face. “I may not be capable of more.”

She stared unblinking for several moments. “If,” she said, her voice careful, “you really thought that, you wouldn’t be telling me. Would you?”

He thought about it. “No.”

She smiled. “Then why don’t we see what else you can be?” She looked around. “For now, do you want to play the ‘yes-no’ game? It’s a way to get to know each other.”

Kankuro stared at her as she stood, searching for a moment before she found his stack of parchment, sitting inside a drawer in his small desk in the side room. She came back with it and a few pencils. “We write yes and no on one side of a piece of paper, and then we’re asked if we’ve ever done something, or if we like something. They have to try to guess yes or no, and then we answer.” She held out one of the papers and a pencil. He stared at them. Slowly, he accepted the items. She didn’t try to stab him with the pencil or rescind the offer. “Come on, Kankuro. If you won’t play, then you can just ask the questions.”

There was a steel in her voice. With a resigned sigh, Kankuro took the paper and pencil she offered. “I’ll play.”

Gaara stood until Temari cleared her throat. “Want to sit?” she asked.

He pulled sand out of his gourd without thinking. Both flinched violently. He quickly formed it into a chair and sat. They both stared as if they were seeing something completely foreign. Temari was the first to recover. “All right! I’ll go first. Do you like sweets?”

Kankuro rolled his eyes. “Sure, whatever.” He held up the ‘yes’ side of his paper. “It’s okay.”

Gaara looked at the paper. It was a simple piece of parchment, one used to write his mission reports on after he completed them. Now, it sported a business-like, yet elegant script. On one side, the word ‘yes’ sat scribbled in the center. On the other, the word ‘no.’ Feeling ridiculous, he nonetheless held up the paper. Kankuro going first made it a bit less awkward. “I don’t like sweets,” he said simply.

Kankuro snickered. “Hear that? No wooing him with your sweet chestnuts.”

Gaara wrinkled his nose, but he tried, anyway. “Do… you like cooking sweets?”

“I’m not a big cooker, but I’m good at making what I like,” she said, lifting her chin with pride. “I make a mean kenchin soup.”

Gaara blinked. “Are… you asking because you want to cook it for me?”

For the first time in his life, he saw someone blush to something he said. He didn’t understand why. “Would you like to? Eat? With us?”

Kankuro seemed no longer able to follow the conversation. Gaara was left on his own. “Sure?”

“I won’t cook my sweet chestnuts, since you don’t like them.”

“No,” he said, certain he would absolutely hate them. “Cook what you want. I’ll try it.”

She beamed. “Great! I’ll introduce you to _marron glac_ _é_ _._ You’ll love it!”

Kankuro wasn’t the only one to feel lost, but Gaara nodded. If this was what it took to try to have whatever it was Naruto had – that camaraderie, that love, that acceptance – then he would try it. He wanted to see if it was possible. He wanted to feel it for himself.

And he wanted… he wanted to meet his soulmate again. The right way, this time.

* * *

They found Tsunade. It took them over two weeks of searching the neighboring towns’ casinos to find her, and another week to prove to her that being Hokage meant something. When everything was said and done, Naruto was injured and exhausted and bouncing off the walls with the need to go to Sunagakure. “Hurry up!” he shouted the very next morning. The old woman had healed most of his injuries, leaving him with only a bandage on his temple and a few cuts and bruises. Orochimaru had disappeared, at least for the moment, and the old lady had promised to head straight for Konohagakure. Which left them with only one last place to go. “Get up!” he said. He bounced on the old man’s bed. The instant he did, the perverted sage sprung up, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and tossed him over the side to the floor.

“Let a man sleep, you little brat!”

Despite the old pervert’s anger, they were both up and ready to go within the hour. Jiraiya made Naruto carry the worst of their things, but finally, they were heading on their way. With Konoha once more receiving leadership, Naruto was free to go where he’d been wanting to go since he’d been young enough to pretend he could swim in the sandbox – Sunagakure. But this time, after all these years, he no knew what it was – who it was – he was searching for. He knew their face.

They reached the edge of the town just as the sun rose above the horizon. Jiraiya grunted irritably at the sight. Thankfully, just before the old man could start complaining to Naruto, two young women hurried up to the town. Jiraiya grinned wide. The two girls looked behind them, toward the surrounding forest, so far oblivious to the lascivious stare the old man was giving them. “Creepy, right?” one of them murmured.

“They both were. Even the good-looking one,” the woman said. “They’ll be here soon, won’t they?”

“Better get home, then.” They both looked at Jiraiya and nearly jumped out of their shoes. “Agh! Who are you?”

“Please, please,” Jiraiya said, waving a hand. “Don’t mind me! Were you talking about two creepy men bothering you?”

“Yeah,” Naruto scoffed, and put his hands behind his head. “Because you’re not creepy at all, pervert.”

The old man rounded on him. The woman took the chance to escape. “How dare you! I am a model of proprie – wait, ladies!” Jiraiya made to follow them. Naruto leaned out a foot and tripped him. He sprawled face-first in the dirt. The woman giggled as they hurried away. “You-!”

“You promised to get me to Suna! Don’t go chasing off after girls! Jeez. Talk about creepy.”

“What!” The old man completely forgot about the women in his haste to tackle Naruto. The young ninja squirmed underneath the old man’s reach and bolted toward the woods. He launched himself up at the treeline, and from there it was a chase. Yeah, he’d get caught soon, and yeah, he’d have to deal with a noogie or whatever it was old people did when they actually caught the young people to punish them – lecture them, mostly – but they were finally on their way, and there wouldn’t be any hot women to entice the old pervert away, and soon he would be seeing Gaara again. That was worth a rambling speech on respecting one’s elders any day.


	6. Marron Glacé

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Naruto decides something, it happens.
> 
> AKA the inevitable reunion.

It had been only a couple of weeks, and yet Gaara was starting to understand what he’d lost when he’d decided to love only himself.

It wasn’t something he could be upset with himself for. Even now, it seemed obvious to choose that route when he’d faced nothing but despair. But after only two weeks, his sister had accepted him as if he’d never threatened to kill her on a weekly basis. His brother stuck around without constantly edging toward the door.

Little else had changed. No one viewed him as someone to be trusted. Not yet. But the acceptance he’d gained from his sister, from Kankuro, and, to a small extent, from Baki, as well (though the man seemed to genuinely not care, so long as his work didn’t suffer), gave him hope that the path Naruto had showed him was not for the blond alone.

He stood on the edge of the desert’s more rocky shores, looking out above the sand as the sun crested its highest hills. He could hear, in his mind, an echo of the wind as it caressed his hair. He knew the scar on his forehead showed vividly against his pale skin as his bangs blew back.

“Gaara.”

He didn’t turn at his brother’s voice. He’d seen him coming, had heard each soft footstep as he’d neared. The sky burst into color, the gray turning red and gold and fire-orange. It reminded him of his soulmate’s hair and clothes. It reminded him of his own heart, locked cold and buried until that one loud, bright star had burst before him. “Good morning,” he said, and meant it.

“I heard you want to take the position of the next Kazekage.”

He still didn’t turn. Yes, it was true. He’d spoken with Temari and Baki over the logistics of it. Technically, the position was supposed to fall to the first son, but Kankuro had been reluctant. Baki insisted Kankuro would have little choice in the matter; Suna’s leader was chosen from the first’s male descendants, and their father had had no siblings. His mother’s sibling was dead. That left Kankuro… or Gaara. Temari had been the one to bring that up. And with it had come an idea so preposterous, it could only have spawned after meeting an impossible boy. “That’s right.”

A long silence. The sun gleamed, limned in liquid gold, the waves of heat rippling in the sky until the sunlight danced with the dunes. “Why?” the man finally asked.

He’d chosen new garb a few days ago. Even he wasn’t yet used to the feel of it. It stretched around his skin in odd places, hung loose in others. But it was no longer black and red. Instead it stood out in bright maroon and white. The colors felt better around him somehow. Less restricting. And it helped that it made him, as Temari said, ‘look good.’ He wanted to look less threatening. He also wanted, if he ever met Naruto again, to look… well, dashing. It was another strange concept he had yet to grasp. He liked it, though. An anticipation not unlike that of a battlefield.

“I want to work hard and become an existence acknowledged by other people,” he said, barely answering his brother’s question. “I… thought that, looking at Uzumaki Naruto. Looking at my soulmate.” The stiffening from behind him gave him a small sort of satisfaction. He’d never spoken of the idea of soulmates, let alone the fact that he had one. He’d only told one man, and that man had tried to kill him. There had been little point of speaking on it afterward; he’d had no intention of meeting anyone, or of letting them leave his acquaintance alive if he had. Uzumaki Naruto, however, defied every and all expectations.

“Soulmate?” Kankuro asked. His voice was low, almost a whisper, as if to speak louder would be to break some sort of spell.

“That’s right. Before now – before being defeated by him – I’d always seen ties with other people as little more than hate. A desire to kill. But, if only just a little, I’ve begun to understand those bonds the way he experiences them.” The sun nearly hurt his eyes. He stared for only a moment more before looking out over the wide expanse of the sky. The red and gold had taken over the full horizon, chased away the last vestiges of gray. No clouds marred its calm seas. The very sand seemed brighter, oranger, _more golden_ in its presence. “Those ties…” He smiled. For some reason, he found himself thinking of Temari, of those marron glacé things she’d made. They’d tasted atrocious. “Suffering, sorrow. Happiness. They can all be shared with someone.”

He wanted to see Naruto again. But he wanted to do it _right_ this time. He didn’t want to be remembered as the soulmate who tried to kill his other half. He didn’t want Naruto to remember him that way. He wanted to show that he could be something more. Something that Naruto needed, just as much as Naruto had been what _he’d_ needed. That meant he would have to wait, and that memory of him trying to kill Naruto’s loved ones would have to endure, etching itself on Naruto’s soul as much as Gaara’s sand had worn him away. Hopefully, when they met again, Naruto would be willing to accept how he’d changed. If not… if not, he would simply have to earn back said trust, just as he would earn the trust and love of those in his village. If he could.

People could change. He would prove that.

* * *

There was a ruckus over by the front gates to the city. Gaara and Kankuro both stopped their descent to watch as several ninja moved to the gate as if to block it. Gaara frowned. His sand swirled beneath his feet with barely a thought. He waited, only to turn and nod toward his sand. Kankuro hesitated for a long moment before stepping carefully onto it. Only then did Gaara lower them both to the gathering crowd, his sand louder than usual in his ears. “What’s going on?” he asked. Many had already turned to him, their faces blanching at the sight of his sand already out. They all took a step back. Kankuro, recovered from his trepidation, stepped easily off Gaara’s sand and stopped suddenly, as if frozen.

“Gaara!”

He stiffened. The sound of sand whipped up through his mind. It hadn’t been his physical sand that he had heard as he’d come down. He turned. Before him, standing in the entrance to Sunagakure as if he belonged there, arms crossed, was Uzumaki Naruto. An old man stood beside him, white hair falling nearly to his ankles. This older gentleman looked Gaara up and down, his lips pulled in a tight frown.

Kankuro shifted a bit closer to him. “Uh, did you tell your soulmate to come here?”

Minutely, Gaara shook his head. He stepped forward. He could feel the deep scowl on his face, the instinctive need to push back when someone got too close. The wind in his mind kicked up the sand of his soul, obvious now that he understood what he was hearing. Naruto was grinning from ear to ear despite the look on Gaara’s face. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you, stupid.” Gaara blinked, unused to being called stupid, and certainly unused to hearing the word spoken with a smile. Naruto put his hands behind his head. “You didn’t think I’d let you just run away, did you?”

Kankuro stepped in between them. Gaara felt a deep flash of annoyance as Kankuro blocked his gaze from those bright blue eyes. “If you think we’re gonna let you get revenge for–”

“We’ve already discussed things with your village,” one of the ninja interrupted. Kankuro glared at the man. Gaara was grateful; he didn’t know how to feel about the fact that his brother had moved, not to stop him, but to protect him. “Go home.”

Gaara stepped around Kankuro, ignoring his brother’s sound of protest. Naruto was busy glaring up at the ninja who had spoken. Gaara wasn’t pleased with his words, either. Yet he couldn’t find enough calm within him to speak. His mind whirled around itself. He hadn’t expected Naruto to chase after him. With Konoha in a state of upheaval after everything Sunagakure and Orochimaru had done, Naruto should have been busy putting the village back in order. Yet here he was. Gaara felt something like dread inside him. He wasn’t ready. He hadn’t changed. In the back of his mind, Shukaku roiled, still furious with being denied during their battle. Did Shukaku sense his previous enemy before him? Would he want to attack?

Would Naruto?

Naruto seemed unwilling to stand and listen any more; he stepped forward, toward Gaara. Two Suna nin moved to intercept him. Kankuro held out one hand, reaching back with his other for Karasu. Gaara stopped him with a wave of his hand, his sand grabbing Kankuro’s arms and stilling them. He pushed the two ninja out of the way and stood before his soulmate.

Naruto looked, if possible, even more beaten up than when he and Gaara had faced each other. Whatever he’d been doing in the past couple of weeks, it had involved more battles. He felt that same strange need to reach out, just as he had during their battle. His hand wanted to reach up and touch the edges of those wounds, to find how deep they went. He also wanted to find the person responsible and feed them to his sand.

He didn’t say anything, but it didn’t seem to faze his soulmate. As usual, this particular ninja needed no excuse to make noise. “The Third always said you’d have to be from Suna,” he said. It was almost as if he was continuing some conversation they’d had before, but Gaara couldn’t recall any that would make that non sequitur fit. Naruto, however, didn’t seem to have a problem with him not responding, instead continuing on to say, “you know, since it was sand.” Naruto tapped the side of his head and chuckled, closing his eyes and grinning even wider. “I’m really glad I found you!”

Gaara blinked. He could see no artifice. Was he serious? He looked happy. To see Gaara? He opened his mouth. Closed it.

“You are not welcome in Suna,” one of the ninja said. They blocked the gate, even though they were careful not to get in Gaara’s way. Gaara could sense the malice in them, however, and went stiff in response. He could see a few of them readying to attack.

“I get that you don’t have a kage at the moment,” the older man said, quickly grabbing Naruto’s shoulder when the blond made to open his mouth. “So if you don’t want us coming in, that’s fine. But I gotta tell you, this kid is insistent about this soulmate thing. And I don’t think it would hurt to have kindly relations between soulmates in our villages right now.”

The animosity didn’t desist, but there was hesitation that hadn’t existed before. The ninja turned to one another, sharing frowns for several moments before turning back to the duo. The one that had spoken before nodded. “We’ll speak with the council,” he said, teeth gritted horribly, fingers tight. Gaara knew very well that the only reason he’d agreed was because of the unspoken warning: that, while two soulmates from their villages getting together would look great, Suna refusing to allow Konoha’s half to meet their Suna other would look just as bad. “You will not be allowed past this point. Do you know the name of your mate?”

Without hesitation, the idiot pointed right at him. “It’s Gaara, duh! I’d known since I’d seen him. He even _uses_ sand.”

The words made the ninja freeze; Kankuro sighed and slapped one hand over his face. Gaara felt little more than surprise; not only had Naruto thrown out his name as if it was an exciting fact rather than a horrifying one, he’d apparently known who Gaara was from the moment they’d first met on Konoha’s streets. While Gaara had been busy staring at Sasuke, Naruto had been looking at him. And Gaara had not given the best showing. He remembered trying to kill Naruto’s friend in the hospital and gritted his teeth.

He hadn’t changed. He hadn’t done anything. This was the wrong time for Naruto to be here.

He never would have thought the ninja would actually hunt him down.

The ninja – and Gaara supposed that, if he was going to change, he should probably start by learning their names – all seemed to reach for their kunai at the same time. Gaara glared at them.

So much for fostering goodwill.

Naruto was glaring at them too, he saw belatedly. He didn’t know whether to be happy they were in sync or upset that their combined attitudes were going to ruin…

Ruin this reunion.

He held his breath and stepped forward. None of the ninja around him dared oppose him. His brother made an aborted sound of concern, but stayed back. Naruto stopped huffing at the Suna nin and stared at him. Gaara waited. Amazingly, Naruto grinned. “That’s right! You can just come out here with us if you want! So there!” he said, and stuck his tongue out at the men.

It wasn’t actually what Gaara had planned – he had merely wished to see Naruto’s reaction to his nearness, to see if the man would try to attack him, or yell at him, or back carefully away. Considering Gaara’s efforts to kill him and those he cared for, the sudden shift in response…

But no. He remembered the tears that had mottled those baby blue irises as Naruto had struggled to crawl toward him in those last moments. Perhaps he’d been looking for anger because he’d have much preferred it to the hurt.

Slowly, Gaara stepped outside the gates of Sunagakure. Instantly Naruto was on him, clapping his shoulder and laughing. The blond flipped off the Suna nin. “See! Don’t need you! Shove off!”

Even through his new vestments, Gaara could feel the sandy wind sing across the back of his mind. Once more, he felt the yearning to get closer. It hummed between them, a vibrating cord pulled taut at their proximity. The fury he remembered feeling felt far away in this moment, seeing the blond turn back to him with a triumphant grin. This person carried a monster within him, too. The signs etched as deep birthmarks on either cheek, three long, straight lines branding him as _different_. His fingers tingled with the need to trace them. He scowled.

The older man lifted a disapproving brow at Naruto. “We’ll wait for your decision,” he said. “In the meantime, there’s no harm in these two hanging out, is there?”

Every single ninja seemed to want to disagree. It was Kankuro who spoke up, his gaze level on Gaara. Assessing. “It’s fine.” The spokesperson for the ninja turned on him, but Kankuro just snapped out, “enough, Jarpin. Unless you want to try to explain, right here and now, why you’re not allowing Gaara a visit from his soulmate?”

The man opened his mouth to retort. Gaara knew what the retort would be – a remark on how, if it was Gaara’s soulmate, then it was another abomination on this earth. The anger reached a clawing scream in the back of his mind. His sand hovered around him. The man’s mouth snapped closed, his gaze on the writhing mass. The look on Naruto’s face was one he couldn’t read; for a moment, he saw a darkness not unlike his own, almost vindictive as it searched out the stretch of distance between his sand and Jarpin. Then it was gone, and Naruto was squeezing his shoulder. “Don’t worry about him,” Naruto said. Gaara recognized the effort behind his dismissiveness when he turned his head away from the gate and the Suna now trying to hide therein. “He’s just jealous. I don’t think he’s found his yet.”

Jarpin actually sputtered.

Gaara tilted his head. That was right. As a monster himself, Naruto would recognize the looks on these peoples’ faces. He had gotten thin-lipped, but he’d dismissed it. How? Fury still frissoned under his skin. His sand still reacted to it, wrapping and seizing in semi-circles around his form, lines of sand floating and freezing in the air.

“Weren’t you going to deliver a message about our arrival?” the older man asked. Jarpin flinched. He looked around for a moment as if lost, then turned to the old man and nodded.

“And who are you?”

“I’m Jiraiya.” The old man pointed to himself, much in the same way that Naruto had done during the Chuunin exams. Unlike with Naruto, however, Jarpin seemed to recognize the name. His eyes went wide. “I’m escorting the kid. Feel free to inform your council about that.”

For some reason, something in the ninja around them changed. The aura altered into something a smidgen more respectful. Gaara sent another, longer look at the man. He, like Naruto, was more than he appeared.

Jarpin left, likely to report doom and gloom to the Council, who would be sick to their stomachs to learn that not only did Gaara have a soulmate, but that soulmate, possessed with a monster of their own, was here. He could guess how that would go. A banishment would be the best situation they could hope for. An attack would be more likely. Which meant Gaara only had so much time to speak with Naruto before he would be forced to leave – or forced to fight.

But when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

Words meant nothing. His actions were what this boy before him would remember. How could anything he might say rival what he’d done? How could, after only a couple of weeks to his name, he manage to be anything other than what he’d been before? Even now, the anger in him rose at the thought of Suna’s leaders sending assassins out to kill Naruto – something he was certain would happen. They could barely contain the monster that was Gaara. How could they hope to stop a rampage between two monsters destined to be together?

The only solace he had was that, so far, no one in Sunagakure knew about Naruto’s beast. It may help the blond.

“You’ll be targeted,” he said finally, unable to spare a greeting beyond that. Unable to spare a _thought_ beyond that.

Naruto, however, just shrugged that aside. “Eh, people have always had a problem with me. No big!”

Gaara wanted to strangle him. Just a little bit. “They’ll try to kill you.”

The old man perked up at that. Gaara was grateful the idiot had someone beside him who would at least acknowledge the danger present. He wondered if this man was one of the ones who had helped Naruto through. One of his bonds. The old man was worth watching.

Naruto, of course, looked as if he hadn’t even heard him. “I don’t care about that right now. I finally found you again!” As if it had been years. “And this time, I don’t have to worry about my friends. So I’m not fighting you.”

Gaara opened his mouth to remind Naruto he could always attack _him_ , only to falter once again. When the blond had first arrived on the battlefield, all he’d been concerned with was getting his friends out of there safely. He hadn’t wished to fight. Gaara had needed to force him into the battle – by using the lives of his friends as a threat.

Now, Naruto was telling him that there would be no fighting between them. Would the man run, if Gaara chose to pursue? Would he stand his ground? But of course he would; Naruto had bested him once, and did not seem to fear him any longer. (Speaking of fear, how had Gaara seemed to Naruto, who had recognized them as soulmates from the start? No; he shouldn’t contemplate it.)

“I…” He eyed the people at the gate; they watched with narrowed gazes, studying the interaction between them. He felt his hackles raise all over again. When he turned back to Naruto, he lowered his voice until it was little more than a scratch against the air. The wind hissed around them; in his mind, it howled and screamed, begging for greater contact between them. Both tried to push them together. “I don’t want to fight.”

One might have thought he’d confessed his love. “Me, either.” Naruto’s grin pushed those whiskers nearly into alignment near his nose. Like arrows pointing at his face. _You belong here._ Gaara hissed in a breath at the thought; the sand and wind thrashed, so loud now it nearly drowned out the rumbling of Shukaku’s desires.

“What going on here?”

As one, they all turned to a new jettison of wind; Temari swooped down from atop her fan, moving seamlessly from a crouch to a stand as she whipped her fan from beneath her own feet and tucked it against her back. She looked from the crowd of ninja out to Gaara. Her eyes popped comically wide. “Gaara?” Then, a moment later, as she spied who he was with, “Uzumaki Naruto?”

Naruto waved. _Waved_. “Hi!”

Gaara looked at Temari, trying to impart the very large amount of panic settling in along the line of his shoulders. He had no idea what to do with a soulmate. He’d spent the majority of his life thinking he didn’t have one. Beyond that, he’d thought that the best thing to do with a soulmate, if one did exist, was to murder them. What was he supposed to do now? Interact normally? What could he say? ‘Sorry I tried to kill your friends mere days ago?' ‘I swear I’ll be less of a murderous psychopath when next we meet?' Neither of those would go well, even if words could somehow smooth this transition.

Temari turned furrowed brows on the men around the gate. “What is going on?” she asked again, her voice marginally more trenchant than before.

“This boy,” one of the Suna nin spat, and Gaara snarled all over again, “seems to be Gaara’s soulmate.”

Temari took this in, waiting a few moments. “And? Why are they standing outside?”

One of the Suna nin cleared his throat, but none answered. It was Kankuro who finally spoke. “They’re not letting Konoha’s ninja into the city.”

Temari blinked. “What?” It was a tone Gaara hadn’t heard before. Kankuro, however, blanched. “If it weren’t for this boy, our unit would have done untold damage to Konohagakure. If we had, we may have destroyed any chance of this reconciliation we have going. And now you’re not allowing them into the village? Can you imagine how that’s going to look?”

The ninja didn’t seem to know what to be horrified about first – Temari giving them a dressing-down, the idea of Konoha getting angry and thinking Suna was reneging on its apology, or Naruto being able to somehow hold off Gaara’s squadron.

Gaara tried to think of some way to defuse this situation, only to have Temari bridge the gap between them all and hold out her hand to Naruto. Naruto stared at it. “Uzumaki Naruto. We didn’t meet under the best circumstances last time. I’m sorry for what we did. I hope we have the chance to start over.”

Naruto still just stared at the hand. It nearly got awkward before the boy just laughed and slapped her hand as if to start some secret handshake. “Wow, you’re way too formal! You guys were assholes before, yeah, but that was back then. Besides,” he said, waving away her words, even as everyone around stared at them with eyes about to pop out of their skulls, “if you hadn’t come to attack Konoha, I might never have found Gaara! So it worked out.”

_How the hell did it work out?_

Gaara didn’t understand, but Temari seemed to. She smiled widely at Naruto and gestured for him to enter. “The Council would be foolish to send you away, especially after what our village just did to yours. After everything that happened, your village was magnanimous to offer us such easy forgiveness.” She glared at the border patrol ninja as she escorted Naruto inside. “I’ll speak with the Council myself if I must.” She glared at Kankuro, too. The man gulped. “Why would you let these idiots strong-arm you? You should have let Naruto in immediately!” Kankuro gave a helpless shrug, and Temari rolled her eyes. She dismissed him and turned to Gaara. “Your place?”

Gaara nodded. He wasn’t entirely certain what had just happened. Like a whirlwind, Temari had blown away the tension in the air and resolved the issue, simply by putting her foot down. Gaara had been lost, unable to threaten the ninja without breaking his own decision to change, unable to think of another way to get people to do as he wanted. He stood for an instant, taking in this new information, and saw Kankuro taking deep breaths. The attitude Temari had shown was not one he’d ever been privy to before. Likely because standing up to him like that would have, just weeks ago, gotten her killed. He’d thought his sister rather touchy-feely. Perhaps she’d simply been doing all she could to defuse things. He could remember a number of times when she’d mollified him, turned his aggression around to something slightly more stable.

He owed her several apologies. And more.

He stalked back inside the city gates, the old man – Jiraiya – by his side. The ninja glared at him as he passed. Temari led Naruto forward; Gaara kept several paces back, ready to react if anything happened. He saw Temari strike up a conversation with the blond and fought against an irrational anger he couldn’t name. Temari leaned close to Naruto, likely trying to keep their conversation private. He wanted to push her away. The desert wind in his mind kicked up, angry at the increasing distance.

“Nice place,” Jiraiya said, his smile sardonic. Gaara watched him from the corner of his eyes. The old man looked around, studying the curved architecture, before turning to him with a suddenly serious expression. “What are the chances Naruto will be accepted here during his stay?”

“None,” he said, his voice short. The old man nodded. Gaara could see it in the old man’s eyes as he returned to looking around – he was memorizing the area. Preparing for the battle that would inevitably come.

“If they try to harm him,” Gaara said, his voice low, “they will regret it.”

The old man seemed surprised. He grinned down at Gaara. “I’ll admit, I was worried when the brat told me who his soulmate was. Your reputation precedes you… in some circles.”

Gaara could guess which ones.

“And then, of course, the fact that you nearly killed him.” Jiraiya held up a finger. Gaara didn’t flinch at the accusation, though the reminder of it left him tense. He thought again of Naruto’s despairing face as he’d crawled closer. He stared at the blond’s back, thinking of how far Uzumaki Naruto would go for that elusive bond between people. He had even come here, chasing after Gaara. “Are you upset that he came?”

Gaara did flinch then. He glared murder at the old man, but he was busy looking around again, this time pretending guilelessness. Gaara hesitated. Huffed. “No.”

“Good.” He nearly jumped at the sudden seriousness in that voice. The old man’s face, however, remained seemingly innocent. “Naruto has a tendency to act first and think later. It’s likely you needed time to consider what happened in Konoha. Don’t let him steamroll you.”

Was… this man looking out for him? He tried to imagine what that would be like, to have a stranger worry over his feelings. He glared ahead, furious at the warm feeling inside him. It was likely that the man was thinking only of Naruto, of another rejection and what that would mean for his efforts to reach out to Gaara. He took a deep breath. That didn’t mean he couldn’t accept the kindness offered, he told himself. And if Naruto had someone looking over his efforts, then that could only be a good thing. Especially here.

He grimaced. “He is… something I did not expect to exist.”

The look Jiraiya gave him seemed to understand what he meant a bit too well.

Naruto turned to the two of them. “Hey! How long are you two gonna mope around? Get up here!”

Gaara nearly made to do as told. As he stepped forward, Jiraiya shouted, “don’t tell me what to do, brat! And we’re not moping!” Jiraiya held up a single finger. “We’re talking. Don’t interrupt!”

Naruto stuck out his tongue. His gaze flitted to Gaara, scanning for something, before he turned around and groaned. “Why is everything here so brown?!”

“Don’t insult another hidden village, brat!” The old man threw a kunai, deliberately hitting Naruto with the flat end – but not before Gaara nearly caught the thing with his sand, reacting on some instinct he didn’t even know he could have. Jiraiya blinked at him, only to laugh. “And I’d think you’d like brown, kid!”

“It’s boring!” Then, an instant later, he looked back, brows drawn. Gaara quickly let his sand drop. Jiraiya chuckled. “Why would I like it?”

“Oh? You don’t?” Jiraiya bent down to pick up his kunai as they continued moving through the city. “Guess I was wrong, then.”

Naruto just stared at the old man, face slowly morphing from confused to frustrated. “I don’t get you, pervy sage,” he said, and turned back around. The same kunai banged against the back of his head. “Ow! Stop that!”

“Don’t call me pervy sage!”

The one who didn’t understand, Gaara thought, was him. But for some reason, the spectacle before him made him smile.


	7. The Uchiha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone arrives in Suna.

Temari turned out to be correct; the Council chose to allow Naruto and Jiraiya inside the city walls, on the promise that Naruto would remain inside Gaara’s home for the duration of his stay. Gaara knew what that meant: Naruto and Gaara would be watched, the area canvassed, their interactions surveyed. And inevitably, Sunagakure would label Naruto a threat and attempt an assassination.

“No matter what,” Temari said when they’d all entered his house, “the next Kazekage will be one of us. And neither of us will let this town keep the two of you separated.”

He looked at her, at the almost protective stance she took before him and the way she strategically placed herself between the covered window and the room. “Thank you,” he said, then, “sorry I didn’t like your treats.”

The words seemed to surprise her. She grinned. Her hand reached out, and for a moment he tensed. She ruffled his hair. The feel of fingers on his head, of his hair being thrown askew, was strange. It had been a long time since someone had touched him without the effort to harm. He liked it. “Don’t worry about it! We’ll find something you do like, and then I’ll learn how to cook that. Sound good?”

He nodded. He didn’t know what else to say.

Naruto made himself far too comfortable far too quickly. He nearly jumped onto Gaara’s sofa, only to look around the room and remark, “it’s brown again! What’s with all the brown?”

Gaara looked around, as well. He hadn’t really thought about it, but with the beige walls and wooden flooring and dark sofa, and with no pictures or decorations, his home did look like a giant gradation of brown. Just like when his sister had pointed out his lack of decorations, he’d never had cause to think on what colors existed in his house. He looked at Naruto. He was too bright for the room; even though his orange-and-yellow look melded well with the brown, he still looked like a spotlight shining on Gaara’s empty world. He wondered what the boy thought of him, now that he saw how Gaara lived. Like a husk.

“Maybe we like brown,” Temari said, not really answering the question so much as diverting it. She stepped further into the room. Kankuro was there, as well, though he stood to the edge and crossed his arms, fingers tense as he waited to have to pull his puppets out. Jiraiya stood beside the doorway, his head turned slightly as he listened for noise from outside. Naruto turned his scowl on Temari.

“But brown is boring!” he said, as if repetition could make them agree. When he saw their nonplussed expressions, he rolled his eyes, flopped on the sofa, and sighed. “Really?” Then he jumped up, his gaze scouring the room. “Not much for stuff, huh?” The light-hearted tone gave way for a second. Gaara glimpsed something dark in those bright blues. Something that said he understood. He bounced quickly into Gaara’s kitchen. “I’m thirsty! It’s hot as hell here.”

“It’s a _desert,_ ” the old man said, rolling his eyes for a moment before returning to his vigil.

“I know that, old man!” Naruto said, even as he fanned himself and opened his mouth like a dog drooling. “But there’s gotta be something to drink, right? You guys can’t live without water.”

Kankuro grinned. “Maybe we can.”

Naruto looked at him with wide eyes for several moments. “Are you joking?”

Kankuro laughed.

“Hey!”

Gaara looked away, his lips nearly lifting at the exchange. He caught Temari watching him and scowled. “There’s tea,” he said, and stalked into the kitchen. Naruto backed away from him as he neared. Gaara passed by him and opened the door to the fridge. The tea he’d made sat on the top shelf. He pulled it out.

“Oh,” Naruto said, his voice soft. Then, rebounding in a way Gaara had never seen before, he broke into a wide grin and bounced to Gaara’s side. “Great! It looks delicious! Did you make it?”

Gaara cast him a side glance as he opened a cabinet to fetch a glass. Naruto was close enough that the sand in his mind seemed to get louder. “Yes.”

Naruto leaned over his shoulder. It was in him to knock the blond back and throw him out of his house. “It smells sweet.” He stopped for a second, backed off a bit. Gaara stopped pouring the drink and turned around to find the blond frowning at him. “I didn’t want to wait until it was too late,” he said. “I know things went badly back in Konoha. I’m sorry I fought you. Even though you were hurting Sakura. If I was smarter, I could have found some other way. Shikamaru would have.”

Gaara didn’t want to hear about Shikamaru, or Sakura, or anyone else. He placed the tea down on the counter and stared Naruto up and down. He didn’t want to hear about Naruto’s other friends. Not right then, as Naruto apologized for fighting Gaara back. As he apologized for putting the lives of his friends before the life of the soulmate trying to kill them. This was the ninja who had crawled to him using his chin, because his arms and legs didn’t work anymore. This was the ninja who had cried for him, saying he understood why Gaara hated. What he wanted to hear was why the blond had come to him now, and nothing else.

Naruto scratched his head. “I mean,” he said, and chuckled nervously, “I guess it’s just as well, huh? You needed to be knocked down a peg or two, you know?” More nervous laughter. Gaara tilted his head.

“You’re afraid of me.” It was a statement of fact more than anything else. Naruto hadn’t shown any fear back at the gate, but perhaps that had been the blond’s usual blustering. This was Naruto when he was left alone with him. A fair trade, for what Gaara had done.

Naruto leaned in close, until their noses nearly touched. The sandy gales howled. “No! No way!” Naruto grabbed his hand as if to prove it. Gaara blushed. The sound in his mind screamed in triumph as Gaara let his sand part from his hand, allowing skin-to-skin contact for the first time since Naruto had headbutted him. He felt like he was falling, as if something had grabbed him and spat him into some interminable void. And within that void was a bright, familiar light. He felt it, joined to him in a way nothing could describe. More than a bond or a knot or a tie, more than a hand or heart or mind. It was as if the light of his soul and the light of Naruto’s was fusing together. As if two colors were slowly melding into one.

He… felt him. That surge of determination could only be Naruto. For that one instant, he could feel everything Naruto felt – the drive that pushed him forward, the desire to be loved and accepted for who he was. Gaara’s breath caught in his throat. He knew that feeling very well.

Beneath all of that, stuffed down so deeply Naruto had likely tuned it out, was fear. But not trepidation or wariness. Just… fear. And loneliness. Naruto had chased him down because, even though he had friends and loved ones, he feared not being loved and accepted by Gaara.

Naruto gasped and pulled away from him. It thrust Gaara back into the real world, into his kitchen and the bright daylight streaming through his thin windows. Naruto’s face was flushed, his breathing heavy, his blue eyes wide as saucers. Slowly, that gaze slipped from Gaara’s face to his hand. It shook.

“What…?”

Gaara grimaced. “You know what.”

The maelstrom in his mind kicked up, the noise greater than ever before. For a moment, the link that soulmates were supposed to forge had been undergone; they’d touched, and by doing so had activated the strengthening of their bond. Gaara waited a moment, then closed his eyes. Naruto had yet to stop staring at his hand. Apparently the blond didn’t know, after all.

“The soulbond. It reacts to touch. Apparently, touch strengthens the bond between two people. You can hear one another from farther away, for instance.” Naruto’s eyes widened even more. He sighed. “You came chasing after me, but you didn’t even know that?”

“How would I know that?” Naruto frowned. “How do _you_ know that?”

He’d learned a lot about soulmates from Yashamaru, back before everything had gone downhill. He’d kept the knowledge, even though he’d stopped believing in such things. He wondered why.

Naruto reached out to him, only to yank his hand back again. His jaw dropped. “I can feel that?” Then, again, “I can feel that.”

Gaara snarled. “Get your damn drink.” He stormed out of the room. The desert winds roared in disapproval, but he didn’t care.

He could feel Naruto’s confusion in his head.

* * *

Naruto had a strong feeling that it was only thanks to Temari that there was something edible for them to eat out of Gaara’s kitchen. He was also getting the strong feeling that Gaara lived much as he had, before Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei had decided to barge in to his home (Kakashi-sensei, in particular, through the window) – alone and unsupervised, just doing what he needed to get by, not really caring about nutrition or normal hygiene or whatever. In that way, Gaara’s neatness was actually a little odd. It must have been some natural part of who he was.

He scarfed down the fudge Temari had made, exclaiming over how good it tasted. Oddly enough, Gaara and Kankuro refused to eat it. Temari didn’t seem to mind, but Naruto frowned at them. “Don’t you like her cooking? It’s really good!”

Temari blushed. “It’s all right,” she said. “They don’t really like sweet things.”

Naruto’s eyes widened. He looked at Gaara. “You don’t like chocolate?” His mouth hung open. “But it’s delicious!”

Gaara glared at him.

“So what do you like, then?” He popped another piece into his mouth and thought. “Salty stuff? No, I bet you like spicy food, right?”

Gaara stared at him.

“It’s spicy food, right?” Naruto laughed. “I can’t stand that stuff. It burns my mouth. But I guess you’d be used to heat in the desert.”

Gaara looked away. Naruto tilted his head. “Salty.”

Naruto blinked. “Huh?” Then, “oh! Really? I was right the first time?” He laughed again. “That must be a pain, out here. Drying yourself from the inside out.” He thought about eating something salty out here and wanted to drink a gallon of Gaara’s tea. He didn’t even like things too salty when in Konoha. Though of course Ichiraku’s ramen was the perfect level of salty. “Hey!” he said, grinning widely. “You might like Ichiraku’s ramen! It’s salty! But good, too! It’s the best!” He leaned forward in his seat. “We should go together sometime!”

Gaara blinked at him. He seemed… surprised. He looked to Temari for a moment before slowly nodding to him. “I… suppose we could do that.”

Naruto beamed at him. “Great!”

He turned to Jiraiya. The old man was watching the scene play out as if it were some sort of theater, nibbling on his own fudge, his gaze darting between him and Gaara. Naruto made a face at him. Jiraiya smirked. Stupid old man.

The conversation turned, eventually, until Naruto was telling the group how he and the old man had come to arrive at Sunagakure. He explained his delay, making sure Gaara understood he would have been by sooner if it hadn’t been for his hunt for the new hokage. Gaara turned his gaze away at that, and Naruto worried that he might have taken too long.

Temari was the one to pick up the conversational ball once again. “I’m glad Konoha has another hokage,” she said, carefully placing herself between him and Gaara. Naruto frowned at the move. “After what we helped Orochimaru to do, we were concerned about Konoha’s instability. How is she doing in her new position?”

Naruto shrugged. He’d just popped the last two pieces of fudge into his mouth, so it was with it full that he said, “dunno. Went straight from finding her to here.”

Temari’s eyes widened at the news, but the small bit of Gaara he could see behind her didn’t seem surprised. Kankuro shifted against the wall. “Geez,” the guy said. He looked stiff and unsure. “You don’t do things halfway, do you? You and Gaara have something in common, after all.”

Naruto grinned. “Thanks!”

The guy looked like he hadn’t really meant it as a compliment. Naruto didn’t care.

The conversation turned again, into discussions of politics and planning and restoration and blah, blah, blah. At least he wasn’t the only one who looked bored with the new proceedings; Gaara had begun staring blankly into space. Maybe he was tuning them out? Or just wishing he could be somewhere else? Maybe Naruto could make things more exciting. This town was just begging for a prank. Maybe they could put some color on those houses, after all.

The perverted sage seemed happy enough to answer the boring questions, and Naruto’s attention turned instead to Gaara. The redhead looked perfectly content to continue standing by the wall of his own home for potentially days on end. Was this was he did for fun? Did he even know what fun was? Had anyone ever shown him? Temari finally sat back down, engrossed in her conversation with Jiraiya, and Naruto got an unobstructed view once more. He looked so severe. But even then, with his sister and brother and Naruto and Jiraiya in the room with him, he looked… separate. Distant. Naruto wanted to go over to him. He snuck another glance at Gaara. Would he mind if Naruto grabbed his hand and yanked him away? Would he attack him for trying to touch him? Would he be angry?

The desert winds in Naruto’s head had never abated; even though he’d ignored it this whole time, the sound was of little comfort anymore. Instead they seemed to be going mad; the howling was turning into something like an unending storm. He really wanted to grab Gaara’s hand. He thought he could still hear the sound of Gaara’s mind. Just a little bit, but he seemed bored, too? Or maybe that was his own mind, echoing in toward itself, caving in from boredom. He needed to do something.

Gaara’s attention turned suddenly. “Get down,” he said, his voice gravelly – likely from disuse. Naruto was about to speak when sand poured from Gaara’s gourd.

Naruto jumped to his feet. “What are you doing?!”

Gaara’s sand shot toward him, slamming him to the ground before he could do more than yelp. He nearly bashed his chin on the floor. The sand didn’t choke him, though, or try to squeeze him to death or anything. Naruto pushed against it. It didn’t budge. Naruto could feel Gaara’s chakra in it, pulsing strong enough to sound like a heartbeat. He wriggled and squirmed and finally pulled his own chakra out. Slowly, the sand around him cascaded along itself and, with the quiet shushing sound he’d heard all his life, released him.

He shook his head, trying to erase the sound from his ears. Even though the sand had slammed into his hair and clothes, none remained on him. He did a quick inventory of himself before popping back up and raising his fists. “What the heck? You wanna go a round?!”

“Naruto.”

Naruto swiveled toward Jiraiya. The old man was still standing beside the door, but he was no longer leaning against it and he was no longer quietly amused. He nodded toward the windows before speaking quietly. “Someone’s coming.” Naruto lowered his fists and blinked.

“They’re already here,” Gaara growled. He crossed his arms. His sand hovered in the air around him.

“That didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would.” Kankuro pushed away from the wall, his hands already out, wiggling around oddly. Naruto frowned and concentrated, barely able to see the thin strands of chakra as he prepared his puppet. Temari stood from the couch and grabbed her fan, her own gaze looking out beyond the windows, her head tilted slightly as she listened for noises that had yet to be made. “Guess people really don’t want your soulmate around, huh, Gaara?”

Naruto turned to Gaara. Gaara’s lips thinned. He could feel something at the back of his mind, buzzing like an insect beneath the call of the desert’s howls. That sand stretched and thickened around them all. Preparing.

Naruto looked around, back and forth, twisting his back to look behind them, toward the kitchen. He didn’t hear or see anything out of place. Everyone was insistent that someone was near, but he couldn’t sense anything. Were they really sensing something, or was this some sort of pranking thing everyone in Suna did? Did Jiraiya know about it? He was old enough to know a lot of stupid, random things.

Gaara looked at him for a moment before looking away once more. “They’re not from here,” he said. Likely talking about these supposed people, then. If they were really there. Then again, what Gaara even capable of such jokes? He hadn’t so much as chuckled – normally, in a way unlike a crazy person – once in the whole time Naruto had known him. Gaara didn’t move, yet one thin wave of his sand shot out from every side of him, blanketing the area in his home. It crept over the floor and along the bottom of the door, where it seemed to branch out still more. “They can’t move in the sand properly.”

Gaara heard odd footsteps around the house. Naruto leaned down, ducking away from the windows, and pulled out a kunai from his sack. The rest of the world might joke about something like this, but not Gaara. “Who, then?” he asked. Gaara had no answer.

“Get back,” Jiraiya ordered. Naruto did as told, backing further into the room, nearing the middle. Behind him stood Kankuro, with Gaara nearer the other wall, his sister beside him, not quite opening her fan yet; the room was too small for it, and any of those crazy wind moves would take Gaara’s house along for the ride.

Naruto looked around again. If there was something out there – no, there _was_ something out there – but whoever it was, or whatever, it was silent. Naruto caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned his gaze to see Gaara moving for the first time in a while. The redhead tilted his head, enough so that the scar on his brow went completely uncovered by that hair, and frowned. Gaara closed his eyes. Showing off, or thinking, or…? “Genjutsu,” Gaara said. Gaara looked at Naruto and snarled.

Naruto gulped. “Gaara…?”

Gaara’s fingers clenched around his arms, denting the oddly fair skin. His sand moved, hurtling toward Naruto. Naruto flinched, raising his kunai automatically – but he’d _sworn_ to himself he wouldn’t fight Gaara again, not now, when he didn’t have anyone he had to defend. He wouldn’t do it! He braced himself and tried to shield himself with his arms as best he could.

“Get the pretty one,” Naruto heard Jiraiya say, and jumped. He looked around again, but he still didn’t see anything. All Naruto knew was that the hum in the back of his mind was turning darker, louder, as it fell into something like rage. Sand swarmed around him, obstructing his vision. He flinched, but it didn’t so much as touch him. Instead it swirled around him, almost like a wall, a whirlwind to keep the world away. The sand tightened suddenly, coalescing enough for Naruto to see oil slick up the air to the left of him. He saw Jiraiya stand straight and wipe his mouth.

A battle? Had something started? Why the hell couldn’t he see anything?

As Naruto watched, Jiraiya took a deep breath, curled his fingers around his mouth – _like Sasuke!_ – and set the oil on fire. Naruto yelped and jumped away. “Hey!”

Gaara’s sand moved. Even as it tightened around air, trying to crush something that Naruto couldn’t see, it moved around Gaara, as well, flashing out in a way Naruto hadn’t seen since the battle with Lee. Gaara stepped awkwardly back, his hands falling to his side. The redhead stared wide-eyed at something just in front of him. Surprise flitted through his mind, dawning within that place deep within. Naruto’s heart tripped. “Gaara?”

“Naruto!” He turned again at the perverted sage’s shout. The old man pointed at his eyes. “It’s a genjutsu. Overpower it with your chakra!”

Naruto looked around. A genjutsu? Temari and Kankuro were moving, both of them heading over to flank Gaara. No – to defend him. Karasu jumped out, reaching for something invisible. Was Gaara being attacked? Was that what had happened?

Kankuro turned to Gaara. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Gaara said.

Naruto’s heart thundered in his chest. Gaara was in danger. Something – someone – was attacking him. Kankuro had even said the village would really be against Gaara’s soulmate being nearby. Were the villagers attacking Gaara simply because Naruto had come to see him?

Unacceptable!

“Concentrate!” Jiraiya said. But Naruto had already closed his eyes. He had no idea what the old man was talking about; how did someone go about using their chakra to stop a genjutsu? He knew there was some sort of ninjutsu for it, but he didn’t know it. He always forgot stuff like that. But was there a way to simply  _force_ the world to come back into focus? Could he do that?

Gaara was being attacked. It was time to try.

He put his hands together, curled his ring and pinky fingers together, and concentrated. Chakra. He could feel it, always bubbling beneath the surface, as if he was always on the verge of being too full. He took a deep breath and called to it.

Instead of telling it what to do, he simply envisioned the world. He wanted to see what was happening. He wanted to see whoever was attacking. He wanted to be able to protect Gaara this time, instead of having to fight him. This was what soulmates were meant to do! Not fight one another, but protect each other. If Gaara was hurt while Naruto was just standing around like an idiot, he would never forgive himself. What was the point of being strong enough to summon Gamabunta if he ended up losing his soulmate due to inaction?

This was why he’d gotten stronger. To save Gaara. To keep from losing someone so important. This time, he wouldn’t be cowering behind his best friend as he fell to an enemy’s attack, needles so plentiful he could hardly see his friend’s face through their bars. He would be the one standing as the shield. He would protect!

His chakra pooled beneath his skin, crashed along the lines of his limbs until it burst from his body. He nearly flinched at the feel of it. The world seemed to – to crack, and snap, and suddenly he could see someone standing in front of Gaara, a kunai in one outstretched hand. Gaara’s sand blocked the kunai from Gaara’s throat. Naruto shouted an unintelligible curse and pointed at the guy. The man stood straight, his black coat quickly swallowing his hand as he lowered it. His eyes glittered.

His red eyes.

His hand lowered. “Eh?” He blinked. “The sharingan?”

“Don’t look at his eyes!” Jiraiya said, even as he chased – chased another back into the kitchen, this one grimacing and shooting giant balls of water to steam up Jiraiya’s attempt to burn him. “A water-type, huh?” Jiraiya said, and chased after the man, nearly brushing up against Naruto to do so. The wall where he passed was singed black from Jiraiya’s fire.

Gaara’s sand shot forward as the other attacker moved again. Gaara, one hand to one eye, didn’t shield. Naruto jerked forward, only to stop, his eyes wide as he saw how the two moved. Even though Gaara didn’t take a single step, his sand splashed and burst around him, shielding him from the sharingan dude's attacks – even though his eyes were closed.

“Interesting technique,” the sharingan user said. Naruto looked to where the man was staring and found a tiny ball of sand sitting by Gaara’s shoulder. It looked like an eye.

“Don’t underestimate Gaara,” Temari said with a smirk. “And don’t underestimate us!” She flung her fan open and swung it wide, even though they were still in Gaara’s home. Naruto flinched as winds cut slices into Gaara’s other side wall. The man she attacked disappeared, only to reappear behind Gaara.

“Don’t even think about it!” Kankuro said. Karasu leaped forward, its arms shooting out to grab. The man dipped down low, evading the poison-tipped blades, and pushed his kunai with both hands into the puppet’s chest. It burst like it was made of twigs. Kankuro cursed and pulled his partner back. Gaara pushed Kankuro back with his sand, keeping his older brother from taking a cut to his gut as the sharingan user launched himself forward so fast Naruto could barely follow it.

That was it. He wasn’t going to stand around anymore!

He pulled on his chakra with a shout. It was easy to pull some of that excess chakra into a doppelganger, his bunshin so well-practiced that it took only an instant. He could hear sounds from behind, crashes and crunches as Gaara’s kitchen was decimated. The man before him wasn’t as destructive, but the effort to keep him back had already cost Gaara one wall. One wall of his _home_. Naruto knew very well how necessary a retreat was when the world stood against someone. How relaxing it was to step inside a familiar place and know no jeers or glares or sneers would be waiting.

This was Gaara’s home. His sanctuary. And it was being destroyed.

Not to mention this man had held a kunai to Gaara’s _throat_.

“Gaara,” he said. Gaara jerked for a second; Naruto could feel a flash of something in the back of his mind. He couldn’t name it, other than that it felt like surprise again. He didn’t know why. “I can fight, but it would mean hurting your sanctuary.”

Gaara grimaced in front of him. This time, Naruto could easily name that strange emotion as it crescendoed once more. _Happy_ surprised. Naruto’s heart went into overdrive. “Do what you must,” Gaara said.

Permission granted, then. Naruto held out his hand to the bunshin beside him. He thought he should go help Jiraiya, but really, when push came to shove, Naruto didn’t think anyone could beat the old man. Still, all four of them against one, with Jiraiya fighting alone?

“I’ll go check on the sage!” Temari shouted as if reading his mind. She looked at the wall she'd wrecked and winced. She hurried from the room. The man standing before them didn’t so much as look at her. He smirked instead. “So. You’re the sand demon.” Gaara kept his eyes closed, but Naruto couldn’t miss the way his shoulders stiffened. “How fortuitous to find Deidara’s claim as well as our own.”

Naruto stiffened. “What?”

The man held up a single hand. He didn’t create a bunch of seals or anything, yet Naruto got the sense that something was happening. He carefully kept his gaze away from the man’s eyes. “I was only supposed to bring you in,” the man said. Naruto knew from the position of the man’s chin that he was speaking to him, not to Gaara. Speaking with that bland voice, as if the words weren’t important. “But this is an opportunity too perfect to miss.”

Naruto gritted his teeth. In his hand, the rasengan swirled, a tight ball of chakra moving so rapidly he could feel it spinning above his palm, making the skin tingle in reaction. His bunshin pushed it into place, even as he listened. Whoever this guy was, he was after not just Naruto, for whatever reason, but now Gaara, as well. His heart thundered in his ears. He’d only come to Gaara to meet him again, to see his soulmate under better circumstances. To find the person he’d been searching for all his life. And now, when he finally got the chance, here was someone else getting in his way. Threatening what he barely had.

He wouldn’t let it happen. He wouldn’t let this guy take Gaara away from him, or hurt him. This man wouldn’t so much as touch Naruto’s soulmate!

He raced forward, tossing his kunai at the man for distraction, to keep those eyes of his entertained. The man barely glanced at the weapon as he deflected it with his own, but that instant was enough. Naruto ducked low and pulled his hand back, drawing it behind him as he sent out his bunshin.

Naruto was forced to keep his gaze from the man’s own. At first, he thought that was the reason why, before he could even see what happened, his bunshin took a hit and disappeared. He stopped short. The man had… moved? He was in a slightly different position, his left foot pointed toward Naruto closer now than his right. Everything else looked the exact same.

“Naruto,” Gaara called, and Naruto’s heart jumped. “Keep going.”

Gaara was going to pave a way for him. Already, Naruto could see that sand moving, breaking into two to attack the man from both sides. Mr. Sharingan jumped, flipped in the air as the sand came at him, and – and disappeared. In his place were dozens of crows. They burst everywhere, turning Gaara’s home into a writhing mass of black. Naruto watched them with wide eyes as they flew around, only to fade. “What…?”

The man appeared right in front of him. Just like that, he was inches from Naruto’s face, reaching one hand out to touch him. Even as Naruto found himself staring into those blood-red eyes, he reached his own hand forward and attacked.


	8. Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi attacks.

Finally, he’d managed to return to Konoha. It had taken so long; he’d been run all over the place, back and forth, until he felt almost ragged and worn. He stepped into the village, amazed to see nothing had changed. Or, well, perhaps something. He couldn’t find any evidence of any of his pranks. He’d been gone long enough for them to be washed away. That would have to be fixed.

The town lay open and bright before him. Trees. Normal levels of sunlight. Color on the walls of the buildings. He breathed in deep, tasting the forest around him. A breeze played with his hair, so refreshingly cool it nearly made him shiver. He grinned and hurried forward. He made it to Ichiraku Ramen before he stopped cold.

He was hungry. Well, not _hungry_ hungry, but he was always hungry for ramen, especially if he hadn’t had any from Ichiraku in a while. He practically bounced inside, barely bothering to push away the curtain, only to stop. His grin slid away. No one stood behind the counter. He looked back and forth, as if Teuchi or Ayame might be on the edge of his vision, or might be hiding. “Ayame-san?” He went to stand beside one of the stools. “Teuchi-san?”

Nothing.

He frowned. “Hey! Where are you guys?” He stood up on the stool and peered over the counter. An inarticulate scream rose in his throat. “Ayame-san!” He jumped over the counter. Ayame lay motionless on the ground, her hair spilled from her bun and washed along the ground like a halo. Blood caked the ground around her. He grabbed her head and pulled her up. “Ayame-san!” He looked around, only to find Teuchi-san collapsed mere feet away, his cap on the ground beside him. His apron was dirty. He’d never seen it dirty before.

He looked back to Ayame. Even though he’d moved her, still she didn’t so much as flutter her eyelashes. He put a hand to her throat. No swallowing. Her chest didn’t rise and fall. She felt a bit cool to the touch. Fingers shaking, he checked her heartbeat. Nothing.

Slowly, he put her down, his eyes wide to stop the tears. He ran quickly to Teuchi-san, only to find the same thing. No movement. No warmth. No heartbeat. A deep, purple-black bruise over his neck.

No life.

He leaped over the counter and ran into the street, looking both ways. “Someone! Someone help!”

No one. There was no one around. His heart thundered in his chest. Konoha was never so empty that no one could hear him when he shouted. Heck, by now someone would be coming out to glare at him and demand just what he’d done this time. But nothing. He couldn’t find anyone, even though he ran into the buildings nearby. Empty – except, no, that wasn’t quite right. He could see one of the waiters lying on the ground, sitting in what he wished was spilled wine. He’d gone to check on the man, but no. More blood. Another dead.

What the hell had happened while he’d been gone?

He ran further into the town, his heart in his throat. He shouted again and again as he ran, only to find no one. No one answered his call. He was about to take to the rooftops when he finally found more signs of life.

No. Not life at all.

He stopped still. Blood drained from his face so quickly he felt dizzy. “No. No!” He raced forward. The bodies along the main street, having obviously attempted to head for the Hokage Mountain, were almost too small to be splayed. They were all clumped together, so packed Naruto could only see the one body beneath the others because of that long, blue scarf. He checked body after body, growing sicker with each passing moment. Children, all of them; their blood coagulated in the streets, nothing more than a giant pile. He was halfway through the throng when he realized they never would have been left alone. No. Iruka-sensei would have… would have…

His body lay just one meter away, before the turn in the road. Kunai and shuriken dotted his chest and legs. Blood caked the ground, the buildings. His hairtie had come loose. He’d tried to buy the children time.

Naruto screamed.

He ran, nearly tripping, splashing in the blood until it spattered his pants. Already, he knew how this would end. He knew Iruka-sensei would be as dead as everyone else. Yet he couln’t help but run. He couldn’t help but grab Iruka-sensei up into his arms and – no, no, he was too cold, too cold and lifeless – no, no, no, no…

Naruto cradled his teacher’s body to his chest. Tears streamed down his face. This couldn’t be happening. He should have returned to the village sooner. He should have known better. He should have been here to _do_ something. Why hadn’t he been here? Why had this happened? How? Who could have done this, when even Orochimaru had failed?

This couldn’t be happening. If whoever had attacked the village had managed to get to the students, then that – what did that mean for the ninja who should have been there to ensure it didn’t happen?

He stood, his mind nearly empty as he left Iruka-sensei’s body behind. His gaze fixed on the road Iruka-sensei had been turned toward, the path he’d tried to block. Wind whistled in his ears; the very earth around him seemed to flake into dust. If only. If only it had. If it had, he wouldn’t have ever been able to see more.

Bodies. Bodies too numerous to count.

He saw masks on the ground – ANBU. Beside them, familiarly-cloaked bodies lay, equally broken and bleeding. Further back were more bodies. More of Konoha’s ninja. There were far fewer black-cloaked people back there, but there were plenty of shorter bodies. Younger. Naruto shivered. His hands shook. He could see blood on them. Ayame-san’s blood, and Iruka’s. And everyone’s.

He knew what he would find if he went closer. He knew he would count his friends among the dead. He knew, knew from the horrible silence all around him, that no one had survived. He knew. Still, he stepped forward. The stench of blood was so great, it overwhelmed him. His footsteps splashed.

At first, it was just adults. The last wave of ANBU, undoubtedly assigned to protect Konohamaru and the other students, had managed to take down a good many of the black-cloaked people like the ones who had attacked him and Gaara. Their bodies had crumpled along the sides of the road. Naruto wondered if the ones who’d attacked him were among the dead. Wondered if they’d made it back before him. Wondered if they’d killed some of his friends with their own hands.

Jounin lay scattered around the Chuunin’s corpses. Kurenai-sensei, Gai-sensei. Next to Gai lay Lee, their bodies so close they nearly touched, Gai-sensei just barely in front of Lee – guarding him. Trying to guard him. Just beyond them were Neji and Tenten, and beside them, before Naruto reached Asuma-sensei and a few more ANBU, were Ino, Chouji, and Shikamaru, their clothes torn in half from what looked like wounds from some massive blade.

Beyond there, bodies and buildings looked to have been blown back by some extraordinary force. Little more than kindling remained of the nearly homes; from the open skyline Naruto could see, likely the buildings behind those had been destroyed, as well. Bodies – body _parts_ – lay scattered over the remains. And under the remains. And in pieces on the sides of the street. He couldn’t help but look at each one, wondering if he would–

And he did. One body part – a torso and a left leg – wore a very familiar red cloth over tight shorts. He closed his eyes and stopped moving. No. No, no. He didn’t want to see this.

The wind howled through the scattered buildings. Like a ghost town, it whistled through the cracks of Konoha’s broken buildings. The smell of blood was overwhelming. No one moved. No one silenced the empty stillness. No one could. Everyone was dead.

He opened his eyes and scanned the area again, knowing. Knowing, and yet hoping, anyway. This street once led back toward the shopping district, toward the lesser venues like the flower shop and the pottery store. Shops that he could already tell no longer stood. Shops that likely buried their dead the same way Sakura-chan’s…

He whimpered as he saw them.

He’d always known Sasuke wasn’t actually as invincible as he’d sometimes seemed. The battle with Gaara had proven that. Yet somehow it seemed so unnatural that he be so still, so broken. His limbs lay in positions so awkward, it was clear he’d been broken before he’d been killed. Kakashi-sensei lay by his side. His sharingan – Sasuke’s sharingans, as well – had been plucked out.

He didn’t bother going to them. He just collapsed.

The air was caked with the scent of blood. Out here, in the sun, the corpses were beginning to smell, as well; rot and feces and bad meat, all rolled into one. He closed his eyes, wishing he could blot out every sense. Wishing he could blot out the world, time itself, and start the day over again. He curled into a ball and screamed and screamed and screamed. No one heard him. No one was left. Whoever remained from this battle, they were not of Konoha. These people in these cloaks had taken everything, only to vanish again.

_Gaara_.

Viscerally, desperately, he wanted his soulmate. He snapped his head up. Gaara. How had that battle ended again? What had happened to Gaara?

He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember if his soulmate was still alive or not. Oh, god.

He stumbled to his feet. “Gaara?” His voice choked. It barely traveled the space around him, choked as it was on the tears on his lips. “Gaara?!” He looked around. He – he could hear him. Through the whistling wind, he could hear the desert air howling within him. He thought he could feel Gaara, too, if he tried. He seemed scared. Gaara. Scared. God, no. “Gaara! Answer me!”

He turned around and around in circles. Surely he could sense which way Gaara was, right? If they were supposed to be linked, then he should be able to find him. What was the point otherwise?

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t, and his soulmate was afraid. How much longer did he have until Gaara, too–

The desert sands scraped along his eardrums. He turned. The block-cloaked man with the sharingan stood before him. One hand, outstretched, held Gaara out by his throat. Some desperate sound escaped the back of Naruto’s throat. “Let him go!”

The man’s grip only tightened; Naruto froze where he was, eyes wide as they took in Gaara’s beaten form. His gourd was gone; Naruto couldn’t find his sand anywhere, even though Gaara had never been without it before. Blood ran down from Gaara’s scalp, a deeper, darker shade than his hair. Naruto whimpered. Gaara’s eyes were open, but they weren’t focused. His body hung limp. His arms looked broken. “What do you want?” Naruto asked, his voice a whisper.

“I want the Kyuubi.” The man shook Gaara. “The sand demon, as well.”

The sand demon meant Gaara. How… how could he protect Gaara? What could he do to make sure Gaara got out of here alive?

He looked around. He’d seen a lot of cloaked corpses spattered among his own. How may were there? That friend of his, the one the perverted sage had drawn away – was he there? Was he dead? Where was Jiraiya, anyway?

“Pay attention, Naruto. I don’t want you to miss this.” His gaze snapped back to the man. He lurched forward at the sign of those fingers digging deep into the pale skin of Gaara’s neck. Gaara’s teeth clenched against one another; his gaze sharpened for an instant. Gaara caught sight of him. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. Naruto didn’t think he could speak, either. His heart had lodged itself in his throat.

“Don’t.” The man raised his other hand. “Don’t!” He ran.

_Naruto!_

Light burst behind his eyes. Emotions shot like starlight. Fear. Worry. Anger. Frustration. They pounded thickly at the back of his mind, beating some sort of pulsing rhythm against the walls that made him who he was. As if something had speared into his head and was pounding at the edges of his brain. The desert rose to a storm. He choked on it. Stumbled.

“Pay attention, Naruto.”

_Naruto, listen to me._

“ _Don’t hurt Gaara!”_

He screamed, and finally, something answered. Something red and furious. The Kyuubi. He called for it, and it came.

It roared. He heard it, felt it in his bones. It rose like a demon, unfurled its chakra around him, and exploded. This time when he screamed, it was a guttural snarl. The man before him took a single step back. His first sign of fear. Naruto glared at him. There would be more.

The man squeezed Gaara’s neck until that mouth opened and closed. Gaara’s arms tried to raise to grab at the man’s fingers. Naruto ran forward.

All he could see was red.

* * *

Naruto simply stood there.

He didn’t move. He didn’t attack. He didn’t so much as blink.

The man stared at him. Simply stared, and didn’t try to avoid Naruto’s ninjutsu, which still remained trembling in his hand. Something Gaara hadn’t seen before, though he could feel the power of it. The man looked into Naruto’s eyes, and Naruto – Naruto had unwittingly looked back. The man had jumped in front of him. Naruto hadn’t stood a chance.

He would think Naruto paralyzed, only he could feel Naruto’s emotions, and they were _intense_. Horror. Terror. Anguish. Even as he watched, tears pooled and fell down Naruto’s cheeks.

Something was happening. This man was attacking Naruto, in a way that Gaara couldn’t see. A genjutsu? A vision? It didn’t matter. He needed to get Naruto free.

He attacked. His bubble of sand protected him, but it didn’t help Naruto. For once, he thought his instinct to protect himself was worthless. What was the point of being able to shield himself from harm if he couldn’t also shield those around him? If he couldn’t keep Naruto from falling victim to the same person he’d deemed dangerous enough to avoid himself? Now he was safe, and Naruto was hurting, and he could have used his sand to protect Naruto instead of himself, if only he’d thought to care.

The man didn’t move from in front of Naruto. He didn’t move his gaze. Gaara’s eyes narrowed. The man held off his sand with his kunai and a quick movement of his fingers, creating a bunshin that burst into crows when attacked.

He used the attack as a diversion and covered Naruto’s eyes with his sand, careful to close them lest they get sand in them and burn. With something like an explosion, the bubble Gaara had wrapped himself in burst forth, scattering sand in every direction. Finally, the man turned back to him. Gaara kept his own eyes closed and used the eye he’d created to watch the man’s actions instead. Then he ran.

The Uchiha turned to him, his bunshin forming to get in between Gaara and Naruto – why? How? – only to be met with Temari’s fan. “Go!” Temari said, and shoved the bunshin away. It scattered into pieces once more.

Gaara managed to get to Naruto’s side. He grabbed the wrist not still holding the ninjutsu. The chakra was beginning to break apart, no longer worked into a tight ball by Naruto’s clone, who had disappeared the moment his eyes had connected with the Uchiha’s. “Naruto!” he hissed.

Nothing. No response. Yet he could _feel_ him, more strongly than ever, as their souls leaned toward one another, finally in contact once more. The urge to get even closer, to hold Naruto to him and not let go, was nearly overwhelming. He hissed in a breath and gripped Naruto’s shoulders. “Naruto, listen to me.”

No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t about trying to reach Naruto physically. It was his mind that was being attacked. He took a deep breath. Thankfully, of all people in this world, he was the one who could reach that place.

He wrapped his sand around the two of them. “Can you handle him?” he asked, his voice rumbling out as he watched Naruto’s face.

In answer, Temari called for Kankuro.

His sand locked them inside its shell.

Naruto still didn’t move. His attack, whatever it was, still sat in his hand. Gaara eyed it for a moment before deciding it wasn’t going anywhere or about to explode. Slowly, he pulled his sand away from his hands, leaving them bare to the air for the first time since he’d returned from Konoha. Then he shifted his hands up from Naruto’s shoulders to his face.

He expected the wind to get louder, to beat against the edges of his mind as if trying to tear it down. Instead it – it _calmed_. The pervasive need to be nearer no longer pulled at him, and with that went the blasting rage of the desert. It sounded more… more like it did on quiet mornings, when the air was practically still and the sands sifted in a slow, inexorable slide down the dunes. It felt calm and steady and warm. He sighed into it, his eyes fluttering at the sensation. When before the feeling inside him had seemed restless, now it seemed content. As was he.

Then the feelings came. They shone bright and bold in his mind, a clear link to Naruto’s heart. It pounded thick with blood and fear and pain. They shifted, moved – his body may have been still, but his mind was not. Not paralyzed. Not frozen. Something was happening inside of him. Something that hurt him.

If he could feel Naruto’s agony, then Naruto could feel what _he_ felt, as well. He frowned. At the moment, he felt tense, frustrated. Concerned, because Naruto was not coming back from wherever the Uchiha had placed him.

He dared step closer, until their clothing brushed. He needed to feel something else. Something stronger. He stared at Naruto’s face. He hadn’t realized how startlingly clear those blue eyes had been until he could no longer see them. They’d brought the blond’s face to life. Without them, there was far too much orange and yellow. He looked jaundiced.

What could he possibly send that would reach someone? He didn’t know anything about kindness, anything that might calm Naruto’s fears. He stared at the lines scored into Naruto’s cheeks, the proof of what he carried within him, and thought of his own demon. His own scars.

His own _scar_.

He didn’t know anything about love. What had such an emotion taught him but betrayal and hate? But he did know admiration. He’d learned of it, and of yearning, after meeting this impossible person. Could he somehow make Naruto feel the esteem Gaara held for him?

He tried to remember how he’d felt, watching Naruto cry for him. No one had ever done such a thing before. No one, not his father, nor his siblings, nor the villagers, nor even Yashamaru when he’d been pretending – no one had ever thought of his pain and cried. Yet this one person, after Gaara had threatened to kill those he loved, looked upon Gaara and wept for what he had suffered.

What he’d felt at the sight didn’t have words. He’d known Naruto was his soulmate, but he’d resigned himself to the idea that they’d been mated because they were both monsters. He’d thought the universe had been playing a cruel trick on him. Instead, he’d been given this gift. Someone who knew him, in ways no one else ever could. Someone who _accepted_ him, even after everything he’d done. Everything he’d become.

He’d never thought someone would ever see him as anything other than a monster or a dangerous tool. He’d certainly never suspected that someone he’d tried to kill, someone he’d tried to take so much from, would ever be the one to see something more.

It left him humbled and shamed in equal measure. It left him feeling lost and empty. Unfulfilled. Who was he, that he could ever try to take something from someone like that? What had he become, to try to kill someone who managed to care about him after all he’d done? And what could he become, when someone who understood him so deeply could be so much more than him?

He wanted to reach for Naruto. He wanted to stand beside him as an equal. He wanted to share in that beauty, to be part of it, to have it shine down on him. He wanted to have what Naruto had. Be what Naruto was. He wanted to return the understanding Naruto had shown him. He wanted to be worthy of it.

He didn’t know what love was. All he knew was that he wanted Naruto to never cry again. He wanted to see Naruto smile, and to protect that smile. Forever.

Naruto’s body jerked against his. Not pulling away, just… reacting. That same reaction left the blond leaning close to him. With his hands occupied, Gaara had to use his head to help hold Naruto up as he struggled for balance. Emotions burst the moment this new contact rose between them. Confusion. Loss. Befuddlement. Contentment.

_Gaara?_

He almost thought he heard it. He opened his eyes to find that bright blue gaze slowly attempting to focus on him. Naruto nearly sagged against him. “You’re alive,” he breathed.

Gaara sucked in a long, steady breath. “I am,” he said. He looked Naruto up and down. Though he held no exterior wounds, he looked almost completely lost. His body trembled beneath Gaara’s fingers. Carefully, Gaara wrapped one hand around Naruto’s left wrist. “Do you remember what’s happening?”

Naruto blinked. Once. Twice. “He’s here,” he said. He stiffened. The trembling worsened. “He’s still here, isn’t he?”

Gaara’s sand eye still watched outside. Temari wasn’t faring well, but she had Kankuro at her back. They’d done nothing but keep the Uchiha from them, but it was better than being hit. The man had one hand to his eye now, and looked ready for a new strike. “He is.” He nodded to Naruto’s arm. “Can you reach him with that?”

Naruto shook his head. “Not without getting caught again.” The blond shivered beneath his grasp. Gaara wanted to rip something apart. His sand trembled with his rage.

“I can guide you,” Gaara said.

Naruto looked at him. In his eyes, Gaara saw trust.

“Close your eyes.” Without hesitation, Naruto did as told. The power of it thrilled him. The loyalty in it terrified him. “Wait here for my signal. Can you keep that thing going while you wait?”

Naruto nodded. “It’s fully formed, so it’s fine.”

With that answer, he checked once more on his siblings. His lips thinned. “He’s about to attack. It will be big.”

Naruto accepted his words. He shifted from foot to foot. Gaara could feel his trepidation, his desire to know what was going on. That fear he’d felt from Naruto’s mind before he’d awoken remained, just beneath the surface. It waited for its opportunity to return, preying on the corners of Naruto’s mind.

He lowered his sand from around them, though he left some by Naruto’s side, just in case. “Get out of the way,” he said. On instinct, his siblings obeyed. He pushed them further to the side with his sand as the Uchiha opened his eye. He pushed Naruto back with a wave of sand against his chest, as well, then jumped up. His sand churned around his feet, lifting him up just as black flames erupted around them.

His sand eye got burned to cinders, leaving him forced to open his real eyes. He focused on forming another eye, even as he searched for Naruto. At the edge of the building, though the walls and table and even windows were burning. Naruto hadn’t been touched by the fire, but Gaara’s sand – he could feel the fire eating his chakra-infused sand down to the very last grain. What little he had left struggled to transport him away in time.

Temari and Kankuro had to stumble back or else risk losing themselves to the flames. Kankuro sacrificed Karasu in order to buy himself and Temari time to escape through the front door. The Uchiha took down the puppet with a swift kick to its midsection. The kick, filled with chakra, tore apart the careful mechanism of Karasu’s torso, and with it, the puppet fell apart.

Gaara had very little sand left. What little remained rested just in front of Naruto, just below his feet, or against his skin itself. He carefully covered his hands again and stood facing the man before them.

With his sand eye once again floating by his shoulder, he could watch the Uchiha without risking falling into the man’s trap.

If Temari and Kankuro had hoped that their escape would garner some of the man’s attention, they were bound to disappointment; the Uchiha let them go without even looking in their direction. His gaze locked on Gaara. Did he no longer view Naruto as a threat, or was Gaara merely the larger one? Did he know Naruto was no longer trapped in his genjutsu?

He crossed his arms.

Without enough sand to protect Naruto, he was left going on the offensive. A quick lash of sand, swinging low and to the enemy’s right. The enemy dodged, even though his eye was bleeding profusely after his attack. Another sweep, and the man was… it was a sort of movement. Not unlike the substitution jutsu, the man could take a step and, with a sudden push of chakra, move quickly from one stable footing to another, sometimes meters away. This time the man chose to take a step into Gaara’s personal space. He’d been waiting for it.

The sand over his body flashed out. It pecked at the man’s eyes, and, with a surge of chakra, turned to needles and flew. He didn’t bother to dodge away; the Uchiha was forced to back away from the assault, flashing quickly to avoid his sand. With the remains of his home in the way, he was easily able to move the man where he wanted him to go. “Now,” he said, and sent a wave of conviction toward that warm sound deep within him.

Naruto stepped forward and thrust out his hand.

The Uchiha turned his head, and his body, in time to evade a direct hit. Gaara had prepared for that, as well. He’d been ready for Naruto to manage a glancing blow, after which he would use the sand he’d placed around Naruto to tear off one of the Uchiha’s arms.

What he hadn’t expected was the force of Naruto’s ‘glancing blow.’

It hit. Right along the Uchiha’s left side, just above the dip where the torso met his pelvis. It just barely kept from flipping the man end over end as he went flying back into Gaara’s last wall. The roof teetered. Gaara hurried forward, letting his sand eye collapse as he passed the continuing rubble and the broken edges of his table to reach Naruto. The blond still dutifully kept his eyes closed. “Naruto. We need to run.”

Naruto nodded and grabbed his hand. “Where?” he asked.

Still, his eyes did not open. Gaara touched the blond’s cheek. “Open your eyes.”

Naruto did as bade, his gaze seeking Gaara’s own like a magnet. His heart sped up. He raised his sand to cover the two of them as best he could as rubble broke down around them. It wouldn’t protect them when the larger beams fell, nor keep them from getting buried. “Come with me.” He grabbed Naruto’s wrist and turned. Naruto didn’t fight to get free from him. He simply followed.

The world shook. Something – the wall above the door – creaked, groaned, and bent. Gaara jumped lightly forward; Naruto stumbled for a moment, not ready for Gaara’s sudden movement, but he kept himself from falling. Gaara’s hold tightened. Temari and Kankuro were outside the building, likely engaging their injured attacker. He heard shouts. Temari. He opened his mouth to respond when the world cracked and ripped. He looked up. The ceiling feel to meet them.

“Gaara!”

Naruto pushed him. He nearly managed to keep his balance, only for the floor to suddenly shift and _give_ beneath his feet. He fell, Naruto on top of him, and felt Naruto crawl over him slightly, until the blond had his chest over Gaara’s own and his hands and head protecting Gaara’s. He froze, twin emotions of wonder and mortal terror clawing at his insides. He squirmed, finally, using his sand to grab Naruto and roll him off, tucking the idiot underneath himself where he belonged.

That was when he realized they hadn’t bumped into anything. Nothing toppled down on top of them. He waited another beat, then slowly pulled himself up. Naruto squirmed and wriggled, finally turning enough to face Gaara. “Are you all right?!” he asked. Gaara felt Naruto’s arms writhe beneath him. He got up a bit more, only to have Naruto grab his face and turn it back and forth. Gaara gritted his teeth at the treatment. Concern and, worryingly, more of that panic strung between them, a fiber of feeling connected to the bright, boisterous sound of the wind.

His neck felt like it was going to be twisted off from his body. He grabbed Naruto’s hands to still them. “I’m fine.”

Naruto’s breath heaved. Gaara could feel every exhalation on his face. Those bright blue eyes were so wide, so dilated. Like a rabbit in flight. He wondered if it was possible to send surety over that link in the back of his mind. He tried. Slowly, Naruto’s grip loosened, and his breathing steadied. “You’re okay,” he said. His hands fell. He took a deep breath, then another. “You’re all right.”

“Yes.”

For some reason, his answer took a moment to sink in. When it finally did, Naruto started looking around. His brows drew low. “Where are we?”

Gaara finally pulled his own attention from Naruto’s face to look around. He’d already surmised that they’d likely been transported to somewhere else, but he hadn’t been expecting to find them standing on some sort of goopy substance that lined not just the floor but the walls and ceiling, as well. It traveled far in either direction, a hallway that spanned what could be miles. He took a deep breath and stepped in front of Naruto.

Who had placed this around them? The Uchiha? He hadn’t shown any ability resembling this, but he’d mostly stuck to genjutsu. His ninjutsu skills were still largely unknown. Then there was the Uchiha’s accomplice, who had been engaged by Naruto’s chaperon but may have come at the sound of his friend flying through a wall.

“You two!” They both jumped. Gaara scowled at the old man as he came into view. “Are you quite finished being all lovey-dovey?”

Gaara flushed.

“Ah!” Naruto pointed. “Perverted sage! Where the heck were you?!” Then, an instant later, “don’t go saying pervy stuff!”

The old man rolled his eyes. “That’s a nice thanks for getting you out of there in time.” Gaara stepped slightly out of the way, looking at the stuff around them again. It moved slightly. “Yeah, you’ve probably noticed, Gaara. You’re inside a frog’s throat at the moment.” Naruto made a retching sound and curled his hands into his body. “It protected you from the building that would have come down on your head otherwise.” The old man glared at Naruto. “Be grateful!”

Naruto, of course, was not one to be deterred. “You were fighting for forever! Where were you? That guy was attacking us! He said…” Naruto’s words dwindled. That panic rose up again, so thick it seemed to choke him for a moment. “He said he was looking for me. For Gaara, too. He…”

“He likely wants us for the demons inside of us,” Gaara said. Naruto flinched.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” the old man said. He stepped forward. “For now, the two of you will stay in here.” Naruto made immediate sounds of protest, only to turn to Gaara. He gulped, then nodded. “Good. Always nice to know you’ll listen to reason when it’s important.” Naruto glared at the man. Gaara did, as well. Naruto didn’t need to be needled when he was clearly swallowing his pride. The old man held up his hands. “It’s not an insult. The two of you are what those two are after, and they’ll stop at nothing to get to you. One of them has already used something that shouldn’t be available to anyone. One of the few things that could ever get through a frog’s throat.”

Naruto tensed. “So, what? You’re gonna have us stay here, only to be attacked again?”

“No. You’re going to stay here while I keep them away from you. The fact that one of them can reach you means it’s even more important that you stay here, together.” Jiraiya pointed to the moving floor at their feet. “Got that? Don’t. Try. To leave.”

Naruto flipped the man the bird. “What about Gaara’s family? They’re still out there!”

“I’m going out there now.” Jiraiya pointed at Naruto. “You stay here. I’ll make sure they’re all right.” He pointed at Gaara. “And you.” Gaara lifted his chin. “I get that you’re strong, but right now, you don’t have any of that special sand of yours, and you’re not the only one in danger.”

Gaara looked at Naruto. That panic still threaded along their new link. Whatever else Naruto was, adrenaline-fueled or simply stubborn, he was holding on by a thread. Whatever he’d seen, it had left tears in his mind. Gaara frowned. “I won’t leave.”

“Good.” Jiraiya made a quick succession of seals, starting with the boar. “Take a walk forward. Once this disappears, you’ll be back where you started. Since that’s rubble now, you should head forward about ten meters or so. And don’t worry.” The old man grinned. “I’ll be back for you shortly.”

A tongue wrapped around the old man and pulled him down into the mushy muscle beneath them. He was gone.

Naruto’s fear spiked.

Gaara placed a hand on Naruto’s back. The blond jumped. He tried some sort of fake chuckle. Gaara just waited it out until silence reigned between them. He placed pressure on Naruto’s back. Once again, with some sort of intrinsic trust, Naruto let Gaara lead him forward. A measured pace, careful steps, and Gaara had them both exactly ten meters out from where they’d begun. Then he turned to Naruto. “Tell me,” he said. Naruto met his gaze with wide eyes. “Tell me what he made you see.”


	9. Victory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle comes to a close.

Gaara watched him. Those eyes had always been piercing, even before Naruto had been important enough to be on his radar. There was something about them that was different from anyone else’s. Perhaps it was how tiny the pupils were, as if they almost didn’t exist. Perhaps it was the color, the sea green ocean nearly as depthless as that which they mimicked. Maybe it was just because the boy was his soulmate, and could undoubtedly feel Naruto’s emotions the same way Naruto could now feel his.

He could feel Gaara’s emotions, but they seemed so calm. He couldn’t imagine this to be how he’d felt before; he remembered the few moments when he’d felt a connection between them back then, and there’d been little but rage and hatred. Now, with his heart still beating itself out of his chest, it felt like Gaara was some sort of oasis. He was so _grateful_ he could feel it.

Just like back then, when he’d been trapped in that living nightmare. When he should have felt nothing, there had been a resonance inside of him. It felt as if the howling drive of wind and sand had finally been soothed. At first, he’d felt nothing but dread. Of course it had been soothed, he’d thought. There’d been nothing more to feed it.

But then there had been more. Just as he’d hung his head and given up, he’d felt it. Him. Gaara. In a way he never had before. It had been as if they’d touched hearts. Gaara had felt kinder, warmer, gentler than anything Naruto could have ever imagined. As if Gaara had been looking at him as if he were the man’s sun.

It had woken him up. As if something had crashed through the world and shattered it. He had breathed in that feeling and found himself back in Gaara’s home, the battle somehow still raging, even though he’d been walking through Konoha for hours.

Now Gaara waited for him to speak of what he’d seen within that nightmare. His heart still pounded at the very thought of it. He couldn’t help but stare at those eyes, that hair, that face, those new clothes. No blood. No rips, even, despite the battle they’d just exited. Naruto had never seen something as beautiful as Gaara’s calm, unbroken face.

“I… what I saw?” He chuckled. Gaara didn’t so much as react. Naruto sighed. Right. Not like Gaara would be put off by anything Naruto said or did. He wasn’t the type. “Right. I was back in Konoha.”

Gaara winced. Regret shimmered across the back of Naruto’s consciousness. “And?”

His throat locked up. He looked around, taking in the soft undulations of the throat walls around them. It was still gross, gross enough that he kept his hands slightly curled into his body, not wanting to touch the walls with his bare hands. Still, it was kind of cool, and definitely nice to know he was surrounded by something that wasn’t trying to kill him.

He looked back to Gaara. He still hadn’t moved. If Naruto’s plan had been to wait him out, he was doomed to failure. He scratched his head. “Ahaha – well, I guess I just found everyone dead.”

Gaara frowned. Naruto kept laughing for a couple of seconds, but Gaara’s expression never changed. He guessed that was fair. It wasn’t… really something he could laugh about, either, really. His chuckles died. “Ah. Yeah.”

“You found everyone dead. Including that girl and Uchiha Sasuke,” Gaara said, naming his friends slowly.

“Sakura-chan. Y-Yeah. I…” He remembered seeing Sakura-chan’s torso, offal spilling over the roof. Sasuke, his eyes ripped from his sockets. He shuddered. “Yeah.”

Gaara’s calm never wavered, but something rose up behind it, nonetheless. It took Naruto a moment to realize it was worry. He felt it almost like a caress, as if their minds were touching. Even though nothing on Gaara’s face had changed, he knew the redhead was concerned about what such a sight had done to him. “It was a genjutsu. It wasn’t real. They’re safe.”

Naruto nodded jerkily. “Right.”

That hadn’t been all he’d seen. It had been, for the longest time, the only thing he’d found. Dead body after dead body, each street in Konoha sporting a fresh, new hell. But that hadn’t been the last thing he’d seen.

No. He’d seen that man, the one he and Gaara had just fought, holding Gaara in his hand. Gaara, already broken and bleeding, his chakra nearly depleted, blood covering his scar and one of his stunning eyes. Gaara, projecting frustration and pain across their bond.

Naruto had moved to fight. He’d raced forward, called bunshins – and had watched as the man in the cloak danced away again and again, their bunshins fighting back and forth. Rage had bubbled within Naruto’s belly, making him see red. And then – and then, with Gaara’s life on the line…

“That wasn’t all.”

Naruto flinched. He looked up, barely aware that his gaze had fallen to his feet until he found himself caught in Gaara’s gaze again. “What?”

“That wasn’t everything you saw. I can feel it.” Gaara tapped his chest, right above his heart. He did it with a straight face, as if it was completely normal to blurt out stuff about feelings and bonds. “What else was there?”

Red. So much red, and rage that sprayed all over. He’d felt it rising and rising… “Hey. Did I, uh. Lose control?”

Gaara was silent for a moment. “No,” he said finally. “You retained control of your beast.”

He gusted out a breath. “Well, that’s one good thing, then.” The words finally pulled a reaction from his soulmate; Gaara came forward and grabbed his wrist. He pulled Naruto’s hand down, not letting him hide behind it any longer.

He felt Gaara’s emotions more strongly the instant their skin came into contact. He could feel not only what Gaara felt, but something deeper. He could connect things. Like – he could tell Gaara was concerned, but now he knew _why_ – that Gaara was worried about how close Naruto had come, about what he’d seen. He saw – he didn’t know. Flashes of something he couldn’t understand. A rooftop at night, and tears. That big, red scar on his forehead. A memory? But not his own. Gaara’s.

It was like something deep and wretched and beautiful spanned out across the back of his mind. A wide, endless expanse that threatened to swallow him. He felt Gaara’s trepidation, as if the nin could feel what he was seeing and didn’t want him to know. Naruto’s breath hitched. He pulled away from Gaara’s touch, mumbling apologies as he did. Gaara dropped his hand.

“This is happening too fast,” Gaara said. He put a single hand to his head. “I remember hearing that there should be touch between soulmates, but that it should be regulated.”

Naruto laughed. It still felt hollow. “I always thought that was some stupid crap made up by adults.”

“It seems they may have been onto something.” Gaara stared at his hand like it was some alien appendage.

“Yeah. Whoops.” He could still feel that… that _wideness_ behind his mind, just a hair too far off to reach. It teased him. Nagged him. He shivered. “I thought I’d… well. It was a dream, I think. Or… a vision? I thought I…” He cleared his throat. “I tried to fight.”

Gaara watched him. “You failed.”

Naruto covered his face, but that only brought the visions back. He dropped his hands again. “Yeah.” The silence around them pressed in on them. Outside of those creepy walls, Gaara’s brother and sister were fighting for their lives. Jiraiya-sensei was fighting two crazy people in coats. And Naruto had just been shown a vision in which everyone got killed by those very people. He swallowed. “I told you everything,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Everyone was dead.” He stared hard at Gaara. _“Everyone.”_

He’d been forced to watch. Unlike the others, he’d been forced to watch as everything he tried failed. As Gaara’s jaw worked, his hands slowly falling to his sides, his eyes growing dim and empty.

“Ah.” Gaara looked away for a moment, his brow scrunching, throwing his eyes into shadow.

All his life, he’d only seen bonds as something to strive for. He’d always wanted them. He still did. But now… now he knew the price of them. If he was weak, he wouldn’t be able to protect those people he loved. He could have all the friends in the world, but if he couldn’t ensure they stayed alive, then what would be the point? He would just face heartache after heartache. Those people out there weren’t just after him – a scary enough thought, considering how easily he’d been caught. They were after Gaara.

Gaara, who may have gotten away from their battle unscratched, but had lost all his sand in the process. Gaara, who didn’t have so many people willing to defend him. If Gaara was alone the next time those guys showed up, what would happen to him?

Naruto thought of that hand wrapped around Gaara’s pale throat and shuddered. No. He knew what would happen.

Feelings flittered over the bond. Surprise and wariness popped like fireworks in those daunting depths. Beneath that, however, and slowly rising like a storm, was something close to giddiness. Was that pink on those pale cheeks? Despite the horrible memories, Naruto smiled. Gaara was happy. Well, of course he was. Naruto knew all about wanting to be acknowledged. When Iruka-sensei had acknowledged and defended him, he’d felt so overwhelmed with joy, like an old wound, festering with pus, had been finally lanced.

He knew what Gaara was feeling right now. This was what it was like to know someone would mourn your passing. That someone _cared_. That, finally, you weren’t alone.

He touched his chest. His own heart was reacting in response.

This soulmate thing. He’d been right to want it. It was more than he ever could have dreamed.

The change in his soul’s sound was so significant; it was hard to believe that, just a couple of months ago, he’d had no idea who his soulmate was. A couple of weeks ago, he’d still felt a bit jumpy at the sound of the wind, the new addition to his mind. And then, of course, had come the changes as they’d touched. He would be the first to admit that he didn’t know much about this soul bond thing, but even he knew it was weird to go from some howling desert sound to being able to feel Gaara’s wariness as he looked around their enclosure. If he could feel Gaara this well now, after so little time and effort, what would he feel if they continued touching each other? A hug, maybe – although Gaara didn’t seem the hugging type – or even… a… kiss?

His face flamed. They weren’t anywhere close to that stage! Were they? No, definitely not! They’d only just started getting to know one another; they were only one encounter removed from fighting one another. There was no way they were ready for that!

Naruto took several deep breaths, then peeked back over to Gaara. Though, if he were completely honest with himself, he had to admit that Gaara was… striking. Okay, he was really good-looking. Like, Sasuke’s level of good-looking. And he was _exotic_. Like, not because he was from the desert, but because of that bright, flashy red hair and his sleepy panda eyes that were so darkened by shadow they looked like they had make-up on them and his weird eyes with pupils so small you could hardly see them. And then the scar on his forehead – couldn’t forget that.

Soulmates didn’t have to do those kinds of things, but Naruto thought it might be nice to kiss Gaara, after all.

Gaara looked at him. Naruto jumped and squeaked. “What?” Gaara asked. Naruto felt something in the back of his mind. It felt like trepidation. Or nerves.

He flushed horribly. He tried to cover it by pointing at Gaara. “What, what? Nothing! I wasn’t thinking anything!”

Gaara looked away. Great. He couldn’t feel any big, obvious emotion from Gaara, so he could only hope Gaara didn’t feel anything, either. That would be good.

Something bent around the walls of the frog’s throat around them. Gaara glared at the side of the wall. He stepped toward the indentation. Naruto gulped. Gaara was out of sand. If he had any left, then it was only that which covered his skin and the gourd on his back. That meant he was limited in what he could do. It would be up to Naruto to take those guys down.

He put his fingers together and made a few clones. Quickly, he transformed a couple of them into Gaara.

There wasn’t much he could do. But he was stronger now. And Gaara’s life was on the line. He could do this. He had to. That illusion would never come true.

The wall caved in deeper, then split. Naruto sent his clone out as soon as it did, not waiting to see who it was. He caught a glimpse of a black cloak before he had to focus on what his clones were doing.

This guy wasn’t the same one they’d fought before. This one was the one who’d been led off by Jiraiya, the one with the freakishly long sword that was tied up with bandages like it was injured. It was probably Naruto just seeing things, but it almost looked like that sword had a mouth.

“Huh,” the man said, looking around with a grin. His teeth looked like the blades of a saw. “It worked. Nicely done, Itachi.”

The man ducked below Naruto’s clone’s fist, his sword already swooping down. Naruto ordered the clone to dodge, but – but even though he swore it did, it popped out of existence. That left him with only one more that looked like him and two more that looked like Gaara.

“Now, now, kid! No need for that.” The man grinned wide as the sword – the sword’s mouth opened and closed. A tongue hung out. Naruto blanched.

“Hey, what is that freaky thing?!”

“Eh?” The man looked at his sword. “Samehada?” He chuckled. “Quite the sword, isn’t it? It has quite the appetite. Thanks for the meal, by the way.” The man looked at his clones. “Well. It’s easy to guess which one’s you, at least.”

Naruto scowled. Gaara was giving off a lot of weird vibes; Naruto couldn’t make them out, but he thought they were all telling Naruto to back away. Naruto tried to give off his own vibes in response – he knew what he was doing; he had a plan. _Just believe in me! I got this!_

He put his fingers together again. “Really?” the creepy dude asked. “More clones? Are you trying to give Samehada a feast?”

“Shut up!”

He’d never tried this before. Then again, almost everything he ever did, he did without ever trying it before. In his mind, he called out to Gaara, trying to somehow tell him what to do without words.

With enough bunshins, the room would be filled with smoke. This guy would still be focused on the one he thought was the real Naruto; that one would be targeted first. Naruto scowled and yanked on the chakra within him. The perverted sage had told him he had more chakra than the average person. That was perfect for him; if he ended up feeding this guy and his creepy sword, then fine! He could just make more.

All he needed was to win. This guy could glut himself, for all he cared.

He filled the frog’s throat with bunshins, until they could hardly move for them. Several popped out of existence the moment they got too close to the blue-skinned dude, but that was fine. He ordered his bunshins to start shouting, then made one of them give his message out loud to Gaara, just in case.

“Ah, shut up, already!” the dude said, swinging his sword around. One swing took out four of Naruto’s bunshins, cutting off their jeers mid-sentence. The man ducked low and swiped across the necks of two others. More jumped over the attack, mocking the miss. The sword grinned widely.

Gaara nodded. “Fine,” he said, and with his permission, Naruto went to work.

The pink flesh around them took on a decidedly blue tint. So long as his bunshins held on long enough, the enclosed space around them would actually work in Naruto’s favor. He kept an eye on the black-cloaked dude, but otherwise got his bunshins to work.

He wasn’t sure how possible it was. Theoretically, his clones were able to do basically the same things he could. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t follow what they were doing. But it took a lot of chakra to make even a single rasengan, and it required a lot of control. He charged up to the guy, ducking beneath his sword to land a punch on his side. The weirdo grunted and turned to him. Naruto sent three bunshins to distract him and faded into the background again.

He traded spots with his bunshins, even as their numbers waned and waned. The sword grew and grew and grew, chomping down on his chakra like it was at a buffet. His head starting feeling a little dizzy right around the time the walls turned bright, bright blue. The dude finally clued in to something happening and looked around. “What the…?”

Naruto heaved a heavy breath. It was a clone who spoke. “Heh!” Even though he was exhausted, he lifted his head high. “You’ve finally noticed, huh?”

The clones remaining stood in pairs around the long hall that made up their encroached safe space; orb after orb of compressed chakra filled their palms, countless hands working the shapes to ensure they stayed together. All of his clones were in the same basic state as him – gasping for breath, struggling to hold themselves upright. But they had rasengans, and this space was tiny enough that they could do some damage. If only they could hit. The sword was ripping through its bandages, the body of it dark and spiked. It was tall enough, big enough, that its spikes scraped both the top and the bottom of the frog’s throat. It seemed to be feeding even on the frog itself.

Naruto heaved in breath after breath. His clones were in just as bad a shape; several of the rasengans were wobbling out of their concentrated state; if he wanted to do this, it had to be now.

He charged. The dude backed up to the edge of the frog’s stomach and whipped the sword in front of him. It was big enough to block Naruto’s sight of the guy altogether. The sword sucked up the first two rasengans with a loud slurp, its mouth gaping so wide the spikes shot down like a goatee toward the floor as it licked up his chakra. Naruto jumped in with the rest of his clones and tried to find an open space.

Gaara’s sand wrapped around the man’s ankle and pulled.

Naruto crowed as the man gave an aborted shout and tipped over. His sword scraped across the floor of the throat. He caught himself with one hand and a knee, but by then, it was too late.

Naruto’s clones dropped their fumbling rasengans to grab the man’s arm and hold it back. The man was crazy strong – no surprise, really, what with the _size_ of that sword now – and started dragging Naruto’s clones even as they dug in their heels. Gaara’s sand yanked on the man’s ankle again.

Naruto saw it. He saw it just in time to land to the man’s right and turn, as the blue-skinned weirdo’s gaze tracked the line of sand to its source. “Gaara!”

The man grinned. “Even if it’s just one!” he said, and ran forward.

“No!” Naruto chased after him. His clones tried to stop him, grab him, use their rasengans – but the things were fizzing out, whirling apart in their hands – too much, it was too much and he couldn’t hold them together – and then the man was in front of Gaara, two more of Naruto’s bunshins turned to dust in the man’s wake, and that gigantic sword was crashing down on Gaara’s head, too big and too spiked for Gaara to block with so little sand left.

Gaara disappeared in a poof of smoke.

“Wha...?”

The dude stared down at the space in front of him, trying to put the pieces together. Gaara’s sand still floated around the smoke, turning it almost orange as the sand fizzed in the air. The smoke dissipated, leaving nothing – nothing, because the one the man had attacked had been Naruto’s clone, with Gaara’s sand purposefully moved to it to make the decoy more realistic.

And now the man’s back was open, his sword on the ground, his defenses, for a split second, down.

“Suck on this!” Naruto said, just as the man started turning to face him. “Rasengan!”

He hit the guy full in the back; the sword he held opened its mouth wide, its tongue slurping up the chakra from Naruto’s attack even as the man took it to the spine and went flying. The sword, heavy enough to weigh down the man’s side, slid against the frog’s throat, dragging one side of the guy back as he sailed into the wall. He splatted face-first against it, yet, when he landed, one hand still clung to the hilt of that freakish sword. Naruto landed on both feet. In the next moment, he fell to one knee.

Inside him, something red and angry turned its beady eye on him.

He sucked in a breath. His chakra was almost out. With its loss, he could feel the rise of the kyuubi within him. It knew he was tired. He gritted his teeth. The last thing he needed was to lose himself to it now. Gaara was still in danger. Even now, the guy was struggling to get his hands beneath him and pick himself up. He needed to do something. Something else. Something more.

His fingers clenched around his knee. He used the last of his strength to stand once more.

If he was going to die, he wouldn’t do it lying down with his soulmate slaughtered right in front of him.

“Gaara!”

Temari’s voice?

Naruto turned to the sound, only to nearly be blown back by a sudden wave of wind. He raised his hand and ducked low. Something flittered across the back of his mind – relief. Something tickled the hairs on his right arm. He looked over to see the strands of Gaara’s sand sifting in the air beside him. A quick conglomeration, prepared to protect him as much as possible from the counterattack they’d both known was coming. He looked over to Gaara. His face looked nearly the same as ever, only – only, this time, Naruto could swear he could see those lips slightly parted, that empty brow less furrowed. He could _see_ Gaara’s relief on his face.

Because that sand would not have been enough.

Temari raced up to them, passing by him to stand just before both Naruto and Gaara, placing herself as their shield. Kankuro came next, a second, skinnier puppet held before him. An arm with a long stinger went soaring for the enemy’s neck. The guy swatted it away with his monster sword. He missed the thing, yet it collapsed to the ground and didn’t move. Kankuro cursed.

“Are you all right?!” Temari asked.

Naruto looked around. How did they get into… but the walls were gone. He blinked. “The frog…” he said.

“Gone. Jiraiya-sama asked us to come to your aid.”

Naruto sank back to one knee in wonder. His heart triphammered in his chest. They were back outside, suddenly, the desert sky filled with sunlight, the streets lined with Suna nin. He couldn’t see Jiraiya or the other attacker, but he could see a wake of destruction down one street – carts tipped over, a door smashed, scratches along one wall – that told him where they’d gone.

The guy who’d been fighting him backed away at the sight of so many before him. He grimaced. “Next time,” he said. His back didn’t straighten fully. Still, he remained conscious, still standing despite Naruto’s rasengan. That alone would have been terrifying if it weren’t for that crazy sword, still bloated from its feast, its mouth wide in a saw-toothed smile.

The man held up a hand. “Stop him!” one of the Suna nin yelled. They raced out to grab the cloaked guy, but a swirl of water encapsulated him and burst forth, and he was gone. The Suna nin cursed. “Spread out and find him!”

Naruto sank fully to the ground as several nin raced off to do as told. He curled onto his side. His eyelids were heavy. “Ah,” he said. “I’m so tired.”

“Naruto? Are you hurt?” He heard Temari kneel down beside him, but couldn’t summon up the energy to open his eyes or answer. Already he could feel the pull of sleep, the demand for energy that he’d lost.

“He’s uninjured,” Gaara said. That voice came closer. Naruto heard the calm desert wind decrease in pressure still more as Gaara approached. “He’s just tired. He used up most of his chakra keeping that man at bay.”

“And you?” she asked. Naruto smiled a little at the question. He was glad. Gaara finally had somebody to worry about him. He knew what that was like. He thought of Iruka-sensei, the first person to actually get angry when Naruto showed up with bumps and cuts and bruises from some harebrained prank of his. Iruka-sensei would spend just as much time yelling at him for getting himself hurt as he would for Naruto breaking the rules.

So Gaara had that now, too. That was great. Gaara deserved it.

He felt Gaara pick up on his feelings, as if he could somehow see Gaara’s attention turn inward, toward him. A soft wave of emotion flowed through their link.

Yes, Gaara had someone. And he was so very, very grateful.

For a moment, just before he slipped into slumber, he thought that gratitude might have been directed, not at Temari, but toward him. The thought was ridiculous, but it still made him feel warm. He slipped easily into sleep.

* * *

It felt like years before he opened his eyes again, but anger and panic made him push himself back into consciousness. He burst upright, hardly taking in his surroundings – brown, and orange, and _hot_ – before a hand gripped his arm. Instantly, he felt every single emotion, just as before, stronger and more vibrant than ever, almost teeming with color and light. Gaara. Angry, and a little afraid. Filled with trepidation and torn on what he should do, yet steadfastly choosing Naruto’s side. Gaara hauled him to his feet, his grip tighter as he did, and Naruto _saw_.

He was asleep. Jiraiya knelt beside him, checking him over. The old man gave him a clean bill of health, and despite the fact that Gaara had _known_ , had _felt_ that Naruto hadn’t been injured, past the wound to his mind and heart by the Uchiha, still he felt an immeasurable sense of relief. He’d been carefully watching every inhalation of breath Naruto had made as he’d slept. A reminder to himself that Naruto was still alive. That the wind in his mind would not die out.

Jiraiya had made to pick Naruto up when several Suna nin came up to them. Gaara had recognized the looks on their faces instantly. So, as he rewatched the scene, did Naruto.

“What the hell have you brought to our doorstep?”

Naruto recognized the speaker as the one who’d barred him from entering the city when he and Jiraiya had first arrived. What was his name? Jarpin? He recognized Jarpin, and the look on Jarpin’s face. The one that said the very clouds came because of Gaara’s existence in their city. _Their_ city. Not his.

“Those were cloaks of the Akatsuki. Those people were after you and your mate.” The man spat the words _you_ and _mate_ like he’d eaten something rotting. “It’s thanks to you that we have these people in our city, damaging our homes.”

Jiraiya stepped forward, one hand out. “Actually, I would say it was likely our fault. They seemed to have followed us.”

Jarpin turned on Jiraiya. “You shouldn’t be here. _He_ shouldn’t have a _mate_.”

Even though he was watching all of this from Gaara’s memories, anger boiled up within him. At the time of the man’s outburst, however, he’d still been lying dormant on the ground. “I understand your anger,” Jiraiya said, holding both his hands out now as if asking for a surrender. “But these people said themselves that they’d been planning an attack for some time.”

“Be that as it may,” someone said, stepping forward. Naruto saw a group of old people, mostly men. Everyone parted to let them pass. One, with eyebrows so thick they covered the man’s eyes from view, spoke. “It remains that Akatsuki attacked our village because you are here. You and that… child,” the old man said, turning his head toward Naruto’s prone form, “are to leave this country immediately. And never come back.”

Naruto stood stunned. Speechless. Angry. Hurt. Rebellious. _Like hell_.

“We’ll take our leave for now,” Jiraiya said, and the old man dropped his arms. For the first time, Naruto noticed a missing piece of cloth from the man’s right arm. He’d gotten hurt? “But we won’t take your edict to not return. That can only be handed out by your kazekage.”

The old man frowned at him. Naruto held his breath. “You are not welcome here,” he said, and Jiraiya snorted.

“Akatsuki will be back, whether we’re here or not. As for whether we’re _welcome_ or not, well. As I said. That’s up to your kazekage, whether it would be prudent to blacklist members of Konoha simply because the one who stopped your Gaara from going on a rampage also happens to be his soulmate.” Jiraiya dared step toward the old man. “Now, if your next kazekage, or perhaps your daimyo, were to give such an edict, we would be forced to follow it. Though I wonder how that would look.”

A stare-off began. Gaara’s gaze flitted around, however, taking in the ninja around them and the positions they’d taken. Even Naruto could tell they’d deliberately surrounded Naruto and Gaara. He watched Gaara lean down, lightning-quick, and grab his arm.

The scenes flashed through his mind in an instant. In the next, he was being pulled to his feet, Gaara’s gaze already moving to flash once more across the faces surrounding them. The little bit of Gaara’s sand circled around his fingers. It seemed to be unconscious; Gaara’s mind was flashing out signals of _run_ and _go_. And yet he held on to Naruto tight.

If he stayed, things would get even harder for Gaara. Yet he didn’t want to abandon him. “No matter what,” he said, catching Gaara’s attention. _No matter what. I’ll come back for you._

 _No need_. Naruto heard the intention more than the words; it was as if wordless thoughts were being sent to him, and his mind – or maybe his heart – was translating them. _I’ll become stronger_. _Things will be different when we meet again._

That meant Gaara intended to meet him again. That was what mattered. “If not here, then Konoha,” he said, and turned. Jiraiya was practically spitting at the old man’s feet. The old man turned away just as Naruto said, “I’m glad.” _I’m glad I came to see you. I’m glad I have a soulmate. I’m glad it’s you_.

Gaara’s eyes widened.

“Come on, Naruto. We have to check on the new hokage.”

In other words, they were leaving because it was convenient for them. Not because they’d been ordered. Naruto lifted his chin, pointedly saying, “Tsunade-baba? She should be fine, right?”

Jiraiya snorted. “Sure, if she’s not driving her constituents crazy.” The old man eyed their still-joined hands.

It was time to leave. Already. Naruto had only just gotten to see Gaara again! It wasn’t fair! And those guys – Naruto knew they were after Gaara as well as him. They’d done their best, but neither of them had been strong enough to defeat the two. What would happen when they were apart?

 _I’ll get stronger_. Naruto looked up. Gaara’s eyes pierced him. _I’ll get stronger, and I’ll come back for you_.

Naruto stared. Then smirked. _You won’t have to. I’ll get stronger, too. Then_ I’ll _come back, and nothing these old farts say will keep me away. Believe me!_

Finally, finally, Gaara let go. _I do_.

“Come on.” Jiraiya reached out for his shoulder, slowly steering him away. Naruto went, only turning from Gaara once Temari and Kankuro had blocked him from the villagers’ view. Then he glared at them all as they sneered him on his way.

Oh, yeah. He would definitely be back.


	10. Consequences and Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that a new threat has surfaced, everyone has decisions to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has, despite my greatest attempts otherwise, become more of a fix-it fic than just the simple soulbond I wanted it to be. I apologize in advance if you, my readers, don't like where it's heading, but every attempt I made to redirect the storyline meant leaving it unfinished, as the story refused to let me write anything else. I hope you enjoy.

As they’d returned to Konoha, Naruto had felt the link between himself and Gaara grow dimmer and dimmer. At first, it was just the loss of that huge space in the back of his head. Then it was Gaara’s emotions, growing ever strained as he, too, felt the distance between them expand. The silence in the back of his mind, when that connection to Gaara’s emotions snapped, was startling. Already, he felt a loss that threatened to pull him under. He’d had to stop, breathing heavily, until Jiraiya came to him and rubbed his back. “It’ll be hard, Naruto,” he said, “but you can do it.”

He didn’t _want_ to do it. That made it even harder.

Still, he’d thought, at least he could still hear Gaara’s wind, the desert still alive in his head despite the distance between them.

A few short kilometers from Konoha, that, too, left him.

He’d nearly stumbled to the ground. His knees had buckled. Every part of him started screaming for him to go back, to ensure his other half was still there. Why was he weakening the bond? Why was he shoving his soulmate away?

It had taken him several minutes to remember what he was doing. By then, Jiraiya had returned to his side once again, arms crossed as he waited for Naruto to get his breath back. “How far through this bonding process did you go, Naruto?”

He’d shrugged. He didn’t know. How far did it go?

“Naruto. This is important. How far?”

Leave it to him to get in trouble for doing nothing more than being near his soulmate. “I could feel him,” he said, clutching his head still. He sat down on the branch, his footing suddenly unsure. “In here.”

“Dammit, Naruto,” Jiraiya said, gusting out a sudden breath. “I said we could go visit him, not that you could start imprinting!” Naruto just gave him a blank face. “Are you serious, brat?! You don’t even know that much?!”

“So what?!” he snapped, standing right back up. He had to use more chakra than usual to keep his balance, but he had it to spare. “Every time I asked for more information, everyone just told me there weren’t soulmates for people like me! So so what if I don’t know? You don’t need to know to have a soulmate!” Naruto crossed his arms and huffed, turning away from the old man.

Somehow, his shouting didn’t egg on the old man like it usually did. Instead Jiraiya patted him on the head. “All right,” the old man sighed. “That’s going to put a hamper on things, kid.” Naruto just pulled away from him and harrumphed. Oddly enough, it only evoked another sigh. “You started getting through the whole bonding process, brat. The sounds thing is just a way to find them. You know that, right?” Silence. Naruto was about to cave in and answer when Jiraiya continued. “Touching affirms the soulbond. Normal, you know? It’s the bonding equivalent of ‘oh, hello, nice to meet you.’ You should feel each others’ emotions, which would indicate that you found the right person. But it gets trickier after that.”

Finally, Naruto looked up. Despite himself, he found himself leaning toward the old man. “But you’re supposed to bond? Isn’t that normal? And the touch thing. Gaara said that was normal, too.”

“It is, yes,” Jiraiya said, speaking slowly. Speaking like he was an idiot. He scowled. “Soulbonds strengthen the more a physical connection is maintained, then as a more mental link is established. The process is a big deal.”

Naruto stared at him.

Another sigh. “Right.” Jiraiya held up one finger. “Step one of a soulbond is to _find_ the other. That’s what the sounds are for. An auditory clue, as it were. Seeking each other out, ensuring you found the right person, as I said before.” A second finger. “Step two is touch. It’s the way to prove you found each other, and it starts the bonding process known as imprinting. I’d figured you’d already started that, since you and he had fought. There’s a lot of touching in that.” Naruto frowned, but nodded. He remembered when he’d punched and headbutted Gaara, none of his sand between them. “Once imprinting starts, things get tricky.”

Naruto scratched his head. “Okay? So, like, we punch each other or something and then we, what? Start feeling each other’s fears or something?”

Jiraiya’s brow rose. “Did that happen, Naruto?”

“No!”

The old pervert smirked. “Uh-huh. Anyway, no! That’s the least of your worries. The whole ‘feeling emotions’ thing should only be happening when you touch!” He held up a third finger. “Getting it to where you feel each other even when separate is the third step, and one you shouldn’t have started!”

Naruto bristled. “Who said it was me? And why shouldn’t I? He’s my soulmate!”

Jiraiya whacked him on the head. “You’re the only one dumb enough to do this! I tried to warn that kid to not let you steamroll him, but knowing you, you didn’t take no for an answer!”

Naruto rubbed his head. “I wouldn’t do something if he’d not wanted me to!”

“Right. Well. That’s good, then.” Jiraiya cleared his throat and looked out. They were close enough to the village that they could see the Hokage Tower from where they stood. “Imprinting can’t really get cut off in the middle like this. Once you hit the third stage, you shouldn’t be separated.” Jiraiya sighed and rubbed his face. “Usually people get some time off, stay at home together. For weeks, months, sometimes.”

Naruto made a startled noise. “Months? That’s too long! I’m not even allowed to see Gaara right now!”

“I know that, brat!” Jiraiya whacked him again. He continued to talk while Naruto complained and tried again to soothe the blow. “That’s why you shouldn’t have gone so far! You said you just wanted to make sure he knew you weren’t angry. You weren’t supposed to do _this!”_

“It’s not like I meant to!”

The words blasted a silence between them; even though they leaned right up into each others’ faces, neither of them spoke. Finally they both huffed and turned away from each other. Naruto crossed his arms. “Well, I can’t imagine someone who knows nothing about anything meant to do it.” Naruto glared at him, only to find the old man staring away, mouth pursed. “And I suppose it’s not normal for you to get so far along so quickly. I never would have guessed someone like you would be so intuitive with _anyone_ , but especially not him.”

Despite himself, Naruto preened. “Maybe we’re just really good for each other. Ever think of that?”

The look Jiraiya gave him was more somber than he was expecting. It made him close his mouth again. “The fact that you felt him from so far away, even as far as nearly reaching Konoha again, means the two of you have gone way further into this imprinting than is safe now.” The old man shoved his hand in Naruto’s face. It took Naruto a couple of seconds to realize he was holding up his fingers, but had his thumb curled into his palm. “You’ll reach the fourth stage, if you haven’t already – though, if the two of you kissed while you were in that kitchen, I’m going to strangle you.”

Naruto blushed, horrified. “We didn’t!” But he _had_ thought about it. Which wasn’t something he _ever_ wanted to discuss with the old man.

“Well, thank goodness for small favors, at least. At this point, the desire to touch is _crazy_ strong. That’s the imprinting at work. You’re about halfway through the bond, nearly completed. You’ll start hearing each other. Not like the sounds of your entwined souls, or like feeling doubt or surprise or something. I mean _hearing_ them. Understanding intent. Instead of feeling doubt, you’ll no they think you’re lying. Instead of surprise, you’ll know they didn’t know about something a friend said, and what that something is. This will happen when you touch each other, same as with the emotions. Once you get to hearing those thoughts solidly when not touching, you reach the fifth and final level.”

“What’s that?” Naruto asked, curious despite himself.

Jiraiya sighed, then lightly hopped off the branch. Naruto followed, ready to demand an answer, but Jiraiya spoke before he could. “By then, you’ll have more than just the noise in your mind. It’ll get worse and worse – something I guess you’ve learned, you idiot, since you’re farther along than you should be – and will turn purely soothing. You’ll hear each other everywhere. You’ll always know whether the other’s happy or sad, even from the other side of the planet. You’ll even know why, if the emotion’s strong enough.” Jiraiya jumped down to the ground, just a few hundred meters from Konoha’s gates. Naruto landed beside him, heart in his throat, bursts of something light and bright like stars exploding inside him at the thought of having such a connection with Gaara.

“What if…” He hurried up beside Jiraiya as he started walking toward the gates. The two ninja guarding the entrance hurried forward. “What if I can already hear his thoughts sometimes?”

Jiraiya pulled up short. “What?”

Naruto cleared his throat. That tone didn’t sound good. “It was only a little bit, and I couldn’t quite make it all out, and we were right next to each other – but when we were fighting together, I heard – I tried to get him to understand my plan to use my bunshin, and he agreed to help. He used his sand to make it look like one of my bunshin was him.” Jiraiya turned to him. Izumo and Kotetsu stopped coming to them when Jiraiya held up a hand. “Naruto. You got so far?”

“We weren’t trying or anything!” Naruto said, horrified to find a blush creeping up on him. “All we did was hold hands a couple of times. We just. I dunno.” He looked at his feet. “It just happened.”

He heard a scratching sound. From his nights when they’d been hunting for Tsunade, he could recognize it as the old man rubbing the stubble on his chin. “All right. We’ll deal with it in a bit. We have to give a report to Tsunade, anyway, and I’m sure you’ll want to check on your friends.”

At the mention of Sakura and Sasuke, Naruto perked up. Jiraiya waved the two Chuunin over, and they came, welcoming Jiraiya back – not Naruto, though – and leading them both inside. Naruto was already looking around, soaking in the presence of _people_ , still alive and moving around, most working construction on the gate and the nearby buildings, all of which had been destroyed when he and Jiraiya had set out to find old lady Tsunade.

They made it perhaps two steps into the town before someone ran for them. Naruto took in the familiar short, black figure and shouted, pointing. “Ah! Sasuke! You’re out of the hospital!”

He expected a smartass remark, or perhaps to be ignored. Instead Sasuke ran straight up to him without slowing down. Sasuke stopped on a dime only just in front of Naruto. Naruto put up his fists, ready for a surprise blow, only for Sasuke to grab his shoulders. The touch actually made the empty feeling inside him worse. He felt like he was going to throw up. “Hey, bastard!” Naruto shouted, only to stop short at the look on Sasuke’s face. He took a deep breath, felt it shudder through his system. “What’s your problem?” he asked, changing tack.

“Did you meet him?” the Uchiha asked. Those fingers clenched around his shoulders until they bit.

“Ow! Hey, that hurts!” He shoved Sasuke away. “What are you talking about? Did I see – who…?” He stopped. Looked around again. He’d thought the restorations going on were due to Orochimaru, but what if they weren’t? What if they were from another attack He turned back to Sasuke as Jiraiya came up beside him. “Was he here? Did he come here?”

Jiraiya put a hand on his shoulder. “How about we head inside and discuss this elsewhere?” He cast a hard glare at Sasuke when he opened his mouth to object.

Naruto stared at the old man, even as he let himself be led inside the town’s walls. While his waking nightmare had shown no one around, the village before him bustled. Sakura came hopping up to them, using the rooftops to dodge the workers on the street. Her brows were scrunched as if confused, her gaze, as always, on Sasuke. As if Naruto didn’t even exist. “Sasuke?” she called. “Why did you run? What’s been going on with you?”

Sasuke ignored her.

“Hey! Sakura-chan!” He waved. She looked at him and blinked. “How are you? Did you miss me?”

She stared at him. “Why are you all beat up? You were only gone a couple of weeks.”

“Ah, yeah, but that doesn’t answer…” He glanced back at Sasuke, ready for the usual acerbity reserved for when Naruto tried to get Sakura to acknowledge him. This time, however, Sasuke was glaring between him and the old man, nearly vibrating where he stood. He didn’t understand why Sasuke seemed so angry. Though he’d never admit it, he’d missed the bastard, too, and had worried about him. Half the reason he’d chased after Tsunade was because she was supposed to be a great healer, and something had happened to Sasuke during his fight with Gaara. Clearly she’d helped Sasuke while Naruto had been in Suna, and he was grateful for that. But couldn’t he get a little warmer welcome than this?

Unless something _had_ happened while he’d been away, and Sasuke was angry that Naruto hadn’t been there.

Jiraiya stepped forward and held one hand out as if to keep Sakura away. “Sorry, little miss, but these two and I need to have a quick talk.”

Sakura’s face scrunched still more at Jiraiya’s words. Naruto looked away from her just in time to catch the glower Sasuke sent Jiraiya. Naruto’s brows furrowed. Something was going on.

Jiraiya led them away from Sakura and the entrance to Konoha, further into the village, then to its side borders, where the training grounds lay. Though the old man called out a quick hello to a few people they passed, any attempt to call him over or engage in conversation got a quick, “later!” Naruto raced after the old man, keeping only a single pace behind despite the gnawing ache growing like a gaping wound in the middle of his chest. Whatever Jiraiya was doing, it was with a knowledge that Naruto lacked. He needed to know. Even if his ache over the loss of contact with Gaara still hurt.

The furthest training grounds, usually used only by jounin and ANBU, was where Jiraiya finally led them, stopping in the middle of the wide expanse, in between the dummies shaped like people and the targets, so small Naruto could hardly see them, hidden around the periphery. Jiraiya turned to him and Sasuke and crossed his arms, untouched by the area around them. Naruto hesitated for a second as he stepped down. This was a place where such dangerous jutsus were practiced that genin and even some chunin are warned to stay away. He looked around. Empty. Everyone was probably working hard to help the village. They were safe. Probably.

“Explain yourself,” Sasuke said. Naruto looked over at him. He didn’t look intimidated by their location at all. If anything, he looked angry. Naruto straightened his spine.

“Now,” Jiraiya said, holding up a single finger. “I believe you, Sasuke, had a concern over someone we met during our travels.”

Sasuke’s hands to clenched into fists. His teeth nearly clicked together. His eyes, however, looked a bit too wide. His fists trembled. “So you _did_ meet him.”

Naruto looked back and forth between the two. “We’re talking about the guy with Sasuke’s sharingan, right? The one who–” he thought against admitting to that freaky vision he’d seen “–who you fought off?”

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes.” Jiraiya nodded. He studied Sasuke before him. “Apparently you learned about him. Ninja these days aren’t nearly as sneaky and subtle as they should be.”

“He was after Naruto,” Sasuke said, pointedly ignoring Jiraiya’s line of questioning. “Are you the one who stopped him, then? There’s no way Naruto could have.”

Naruto bristled. “Hey!”

“It is true that Uchiha Itachi attacked Naruto,” Jiraiya said. He held out a hand when both Naruto and Sasuke started shouting questions at him. “They attacked when we were not alone, so we were able to deal with them without major casualties. But if you’re wondering about his strength, then know that, had you been there, you’d have made little difference.”

Naruto bristled all over again, this time for Sasuke’s sake. “You don’t know that!”

“I do!” Jiraiya’s glare cut Naruto off when he normally would have said more. “I’m a sannin, one of the strongest people in this village, and it was all I could do to keep him contained and you safe. If I’d tried to do more damage to him, to follow after him when he ran, I could have done more, but I would have put the town we’d been in at risk.” A second look warned Naruto to keep quiet on where exactly they’d been. “His strength is far higher than any of yours.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Naruto snapped, viscerally conscious suddenly of the tension in Sasuke’s shoulders as he took the hit of Jiraiya’s words head-on. “Just wait for him to come back and kick our butts? Have you stay beside us every day and night?”

“As if anyone would want to do that, brat!” Jiraiya slashed the air. He took a deep breath and ran that same hand through his hair. “No. From now on, the two of you are going to have very different tasks. No more missions. No more exams.” He pointed at Sasuke. “You. You aren’t his target, but I’m not stupid enough to not know what you’re planning. I’m sending Kakashi to you. He’s going to give you more training–”

“And not you?” Sasuke snapped.

“Hey! He’s been training _me!_ Go find your own perverted sage!”

“I’m not what you need – and don’t call me that, brat!” The old man stomped his foot and glared some more before crossing his arms again. “Jeez. Anyway, I already have some plans for you, Naruto, so get ready for some tough love, got it?”

Naruto smiled. More training. Yeah, it was because of what had happened in Suna, but it would mean getting another step closer to becoming Hokage. He would suffer being thrown down a hundred more cliffs if it meant getting to that ending.

Sasuke’s lips thinned. “Why did Itachi want Naruto?”

Naruto couldn’t decipher the look on Sasuke’s face then. He might have thought it jealousy, if the darkness in Sasuke’s eyes didn’t speak of something far deeper. Thinking about it, he frowned. “How do you know this guy, anyway, Sasuke? He had a sharingan like you, but it was different.”

Sasuke turned his head, glaring at nothing. Dismissing him?! Naruto puffed his cheeks. This dude tried to kill both him and his soulmate. He had a right to know!

“Stop right there, before either of you begin to start that conversational shitshow from earlier,” Jiraiya said, stopping Naruto before he demanded an answer. Naruto fumed in silence. Sasuke turned his attention back to Jiraiya, but he seemed to do so very sullenly. Hmph. At least he wasn’t the only one pissed. “Now that we’re done answering Sasuke’s concern, we can finish with Naruto’s. No, the village hasn’t been attacked by him. Not yet.”

Despite himself, some of the tension lining his shoulders eased. The village was safe. But not for long, he was sure; this Itachi and his friend had been willing to attack them in the middle of Suna. There was no doubt in his mind that they would be thrilled to attack again, especially here, where their village was still trying desperately to recover.

Jiraiya voiced his own suspicions in his next breath. “That doesn’t mean, however, that we’re safe.” Jiraiya stepped, not toward Naruto, as he’d been expecting, but toward Sasuke. “As I said, we weren’t alone when we were attacked, or else things would have been much worse.”

“Hey! What does that mean?!”

“Are you really as strong as they say, if you can’t even manage to keep one idiot alive?” Sasuke said with a sneer.

“ _Hey!”_

Jiraiya clapped his hands together. “That’s it. Explanation over. Naruto, go tell Tsunade what happened.” Naruto opened his mouth to protest. Jiraiya just talked over him. “She needs to know, brat, and sooner rather than later. I have something I need to do, but when I catch up with you, we’re going to have a talk, and then get ready for some serious training to begin. Far worse than anything you did while searching for Tsunade. Got it?”

“Oh.” Jiraiya had something he needed to say then. Something he couldn’t say in front of Sasuke. Was it something to do with the attack? With Gaara? He nodded, accepting what Jiraiya wasn’t saying, and grinned. Whatever it was, it would lead to both answers and training. That would be perfect. He turned and hunkered down. “You better not forget, old man!” He jumped away, heading for the rooftops to get to Tsunade’s faster. The faster he got to her, the faster he could give her his report and get back to Jiraiya, or even Sasuke. He still wanted to know who this guy was to Sasuke, and why his name made Sasuke so angry.

Sasuke watched for a long moment, then turned a narrowed gaze on the old man. Naruto, of course, hadn’t even realized he was being lured away. He clenched his fists. “Well?” he said, as if they hadn’t been interrupted by Naruto’s departure. “Why is my brother after Naruto?”

The old man sighed and scratched the back of his head. Here, finally, there was no more attempt at secrecy or duplicity. Just the look of a man ready to speak but unwilling to do so. “No can do, kid.” Sasuke bristled, both at the answer and at the name. “The answer to that question is a secret the entire village has been sworn to keep. If you want to learn that truth, know that you go against Konoha by doing so.”

Sasuke gritted his teeth and looked away. What in the world was so important about the moron that the entire village had sworn an oath of secrecy?

But no. He thought of the battle he’d witnessed between Naruto and Gaara and the power the idiot absolutely should not have had. He thought of how, when he’d woken up from what he’d been certain were fatal wounds in his battle against Haku, he’d been told Naruto had won. Naruto, with so little skill, had seemed both times to be in an emotionally compromising situation. And both times, he’d shown a sudden, unnatural influx of power that he’d never previously possessed.

Maybe he didn’t know, he realized, but perhaps somehow, despite that, he _did_.

The old man grunted. “Looks like you might understand, after all.” Sasuke focused on him again. “Whatever Naruto’s secrets may be–” ah, Sasuke thought, so Naruto knew this secret, as well “–what matters is that the secret means he will be targeted again, and likely by your brother, or at least the organization your brother now works for.”

Sasuke snarled. “What organization?”

“They call themselves Akatsuki.” Jiraiya sighed and cracked his neck. “Kid, I’m not telling you this so that you can go off half-cocked and get yourself killed. I heard you’re really smart, so hopefully you wouldn’t do a brain-dead thing like that.”

Sasuke ignored the man. Akatsuki. Where were they? What were they planning that necessitated chasing down Naruto? But no; to know that, he would have to know what Naruto was hiding. And he _would,_ he swore it. But for the moment, all he could focus on was that Naruto was going to be killed. Itachi was more than strong enough to pull it off. Even with those strange berserker moments Naruto had, Itachi could still easily kill the idiot. And if Itachi was allied with an organization… even if he got stronger, strong enough to kill Itachi, would he then be strong enough to fight off every one of Naruto’s enemies? Or would he be too weak, so weak as to be unable to protect, as Naruto had said when he’d fought Gaara, the people important to him?

He glared up at the sannin. “Train me,” he said.

The old man looked at him. Just looked, without speaking or moving. Sasuke already knew his answer, even before he said it. “I can’t.” The old man held up his hand. “I have to train Naruto, or else he won’t stand a chance against what’s coming.”

His anger had no outlet. The old bastard was right; if Naruto was being targeted, then he more than anyone would need all the help he could get. But where exactly did that leave him? He’d been training his whole life, all this time, to be left behind by _Naruto,_ of all people?

“There’s good logic to your demand, though,” Jiraiya said, and Sasuke looked back up at him at the tone. The old man stroked his grizzled chin and stared up at the sky. “As much as I respect Kakashi, you’re right that he can’t teach you enough.” Jiraiya frowned. “There is one… but it’s far too dangerous.”

Sasuke stepped forward. “Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

Jiraiya gave him a look that said he altogether disagreed. Sasuke ground his teeth. “This sort of thing shouldn’t even be given to ANBU, let alone a genin.”

Sasuke lifted his chin, saying nothing. Whatever was happening, both Naruto and his brother were involved. He _would not_ be left behind.

Jiraiya sighed. “First off, kid. What matters most to you here? Revenge? Or the lives of those you care about?”

Sasuke snarled. “My revenge is _for…_ ” He stopped, unable to speak on what he’d lost.

“Yes, I know all that,” Jiraiya said, and even though his words sounded like he was waving away what had happened, his face never changed from its serious expression. “But which is more important?”

Revenge. It slipped into his mind immediately, and almost, he followed it up by speaking it. But he knew the answer the old man was looking for. So he opened his mouth. Stopped. There was something in those eyes. The sannin already knew. He stepped back. Looked away. “My life is dedicated to killing him. Nothing matters more.”

Jiraiya stepped up to him. Sasuke was ready to be turned away, to have to find whatever Jiraiya had been speaking about on his own – to perhaps take a drastic measure of his own – when the old man spoke. “Is that really what drives you? When you heard that your brother was searching for Naruto, what was your first thought?”

_If Itachi gets ahold of Naruto, he’s finished. I won’t let that happen._

It had been instinct. He hadn’t thought. No. He _had_. He’d wanted to know why Itachi was back, but more importantly – he’d known. He’d known that Naruto didn’t stand a chance, and all he could think of was stopping Itachi before… he saw it. He always saw it, over and over again, every day and every night. But again, he saw it. The vision of his parents. The blood. Itachi, ordering him to run and run and live a miserable life. And he had. He _had_. But to go back to it? To have yet another body trapped behind his eyelids, blood smeared everywhere because he hadn’t been fast enough, strong enough, _hateful enough–_

He jumped when a hand was placed on his shoulder. Slowly, he looked up. Jiraiya nodded down at him. “That’s right. There’s more in you than you think.”

He hadn’t wanted Naruto to die. And if this man hadn’t been there, he would have. Sasuke hadn’t been fast enough to find him, and even if he had, apparently the battle had been great enough to test the strength of a sannin.

He wasn’t sannin level. He knew that.

 _Sannin level_.

He glared up at Jiraiya, the plan in his mind whirling. He had no idea how to go about it, but it was his best bet. Yet even as he thought it, Jiraiya squeezed his shoulder and stepped back. “Train with Kakashi. Get as much learning in as you can about those eyes of yours.” Sasuke blinked. “And after a couple of months, go to Orochimaru.”

Sasuke jerked.

Jiraiya snorted. “You have his mark,” he said, nodding to Sasuke neck. Sasuke gripped the thing and grimaced. “That means he wants you. Give him a couple of months to figure out this other plan of his for getting his arms back, then go to him. Cut ties with Konoha and go rogue.” Sasuke stared at him, wide-eyed. Jiraiya smirked. “Not really, of course. But Orochimaru is a threat, and he’s already promised to return to destroy Konoha. We need someone on the inside, and you just happen to need better training. Training I can’t afford to give you. Training Orochimaru has already decided he _wants_ to give you.” Another nod to Sasuke’s neck. “Though he’ll want you for his own ends. The danger will be great, at all times. You’ll never be safe.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Sasuke said. He’d never _been_ safe. Not since that night. He looked at his hands. He’d been considering the same thing. A powerful trainer. One who would know exactly what he needed to learn to defeat his brother. And now he had permission. He grinned. “This is perfect.” He clenched his hands into fists and looked up. “I’ll do it.”

Jiraiya didn’t look happy to hear him agree. “You understand that you’ll be on your own in this. Out there, with Orochimaru, who clearly wants you for his own purposes.”

Orochimaru. He detested the man, was still terrified of him. But the terror he’d felt for Orochimaru was one he hadn’t felt since Itachi. That meant they were both strong. His grin widened. “Perfect.”

Jiraiya stepped away, turning finally from him to survey the forest stretching out far beyond the training field. Almost, Sasuke rushed him. He felt a burst of energy within that he hadn’t felt for a long time. He could see his path, lining up in front of him. It led straight to Itachi. “Only speak with myself about this,” he said. Sasuke stilled. Yes. _Yes_. This was happening. “I’ll speak with Tsunade, as our Hokage, but otherwise, no one is to know.” Sasuke nodded. “And Sasuke?” Jiraiya looked over his shoulder. “When the time comes, sell it.”

Sasuke tilted his head.

“If they aren’t heartbroken, Orochimaru will know something’s up. For the sake of protecting those you love, you’ll have to hurt them.”

This was his path. It wasn’t Itachi’s, or even Orochimaru’s, despite what the man might end up thinking. It would lead him to everything he’d been working for. And yes, it would keep the idiot safe.

Sasuke grimaced. Nodded. “I can do that.”


	11. Planning For the Future

Gaara shivered fiercely. For the past few days, as he’d readjusted to only having the sound of Naruto’s wind and not the desert wind of their combined souls, he’d suffered flashes of hot and cold, headaches, and a horrible, gut-wrenching feeling of emptiness that left him clutching his chest as if to assure himself he had no gaping hole sitting there. Temari had taken to giving him hot tea and every available opportunity, and Kankuro had officially become a hovering older sibling. “I’m not injured,” he said before Kankuro could ask.

Temari shifted, trying to look unaffected as she watched him. He could see the squint of her eyes, however. He knew better.

“We’re almost done with this, right?” Kankuro asked, looking around. “We’ve weeded out a couple of these Akatsuki informants. How many more can there be?”

Gaara crossed his arms. “We won’t stop until we find them all.” Someone had to have told those two that Naruto was in Suna. They wouldn’t have known otherwise. They’d already found someone who had, under Gaara’s guidance, admitted that they’d sent a ninjutsu message the moment Naruto was seen at the gate. Apparently, their job was to tell when a high reward ninja showed up, or if someone with a demon within them appeared. Thanks to those people, Naruto’s life had been in danger. And there were more. If there were people here in Suna, there were likely people everywhere, in every major city, at the very least. Naruto wasn’t safe even in Konoha.

But he would be safe here. Gaara would assure it.

“Should you rest?” Temari asked. Her lips were thin, even before he shook his head.

“We keep going.”

There would be little point in making it so that Naruto could return if he wasn’t safe when he did.

He looked around. Suna was a large village, big enough for visitors to get lost in, just as, when he and his siblings had first arrived in Konoha, they’d needed to make a few laps to get a mental map of the surrounding area. That, however, had been primarily to the lack of order to the village’s construction. Buildings seemed to be placed wherever there was room, instead of wherever was best suited to the environment. Konoha had an easy area for set-up; a forest was unlikely to give as much danger as a desert, save for the occasional thunderbolt.

Here, in Suna, every building was placed with an eye for desert storms and sands. Each building existed to buffet the houses against the winds of sandstorms and the prickling fire of sand called up from within the desert’s heart. Each laid in neat rows and lines, none left to withstand the test of endurance alone. This made Suna a bit bigger than Konoha in terms of space; there was no crowded street, no bother with gated areas. Gates would be torn down in their first storm. Instead there were thick, sturdy buildings with rounded roofs. It left the winds to sail down carefully curved streets, forcing it to whistle against the edges of each building and howl down the short spaces where streets did not exist. The angry, tormented sound reverberated with the soul in his own mind. Both hungered for something out of their reach.

He turned to Kankuro. “Send Karasu out.”

Kankuro sighed, but did as told. None of them were good at cajoling information out of people, so they had to do the next best thing. Gaara closed one eye and held his hands before him. Once he finished, one eye of sand floated beside Karasu. Carefully, the puppet held the eye within its hand and flew off. They would part ways soon enough, and both he and Kankuro would once again begin their hunt.

Gaara rubbed his chest, ignoring the pointed look of his sister. He looked at the bright, blue expanse of sky above them. Naruto. He looked back down. Those who had betrayed his safety would not be allowed a second chance.

* * *

“First things first, brat. You don’t have nearly enough chakra for the amount you waste.”

Those had been the first words of the last lesson Naruto had received from Jiraiya before the old man had set off for parts unknown, ordering Naruto to stay within village limits until he returned from whatever ‘reconnaissance’ Jiraiya was pretending to do. Naruto had stood with Jiraiya on the far banks of Konoha’s back forest, so far away from the entrance he could feel the hole in his chest itching like mad, opening wider to swallow him whole. He’d full-bodied shivered and hugged himself. “Okay,” he’d said, and ground his teeth to keep them from chattering.

“I know you have vast amounts of chakra,” the old man had continued. “That’s because you also happen to have a demon inside you. You and Gaara grew up subconsciously holding that creature in check. Because of that, the two of you have more than enough chakra. Unlike you, Gaara has learned to control it. You’re too much of an idiot for that.” Naruto made a face. His teeth chattered as another shiver possessed him. He nearly bit his tongue. Jiraiya looked at him for a long, long time, then inhaled and continued on. “So we’re going to fix that.”

That had been the first day. From there, the symptoms had only gotten worse. They were on the third day, and he felt like he was going to fly apart. The sand in his head, so loud and coarse, left him feeling dehydrated and lost after so long hearing the other half that belonged there. He no longer associated the sound of the desert with Gaara; that was reserved for the desert winds. This sound now meant that he was _alone_.

Apparently, the only way to lessen this pain was to just… ride it out. But he didn’t _want_ to. He wanted to complete his bond with Gaara. He was certain now that the way everyone thought to deepen a bond wasn’t exactly true. They thought it depended on physical closeness – like sex and stuff. But Naruto didn’t think so. He and Gaara hadn’t so much as kissed, and they were already deeply bonded. He thought it was more like understanding each other. Being on that level where you look into another person’s eyes and you just know exactly what they’re thinking and feeling. He and Gaara had that. He was sure they could tidy up this whole bond business in just a few hours if they were just given the chance.

But that was just it. They _weren’t_ being given the chance. And, as Jiraiya and Tsunade had both said the day they’d returned to Konoha, when Jiraiya had finally shown up after Naruto gave his report, the very fact that they were already so closely bonded would just make things more difficult on them. Gaara would be given an even harder time in Suna. “Is that what you want?” Tsunade had asked, and Naruto had bit his lip to keep from shouting what he _wanted_.

“No,” he’d said, and left it at that. In reality, what he wanted was what he’d _always_ wanted. To be treated like a person and accepted for who he was. But neither he nor Gaara existed in such a world. To complete their bond, they would have to continue fighting against everyone. Even now, thinking about it, his fingers clenched around the cloth of his orange coat. He’d managed to find friends. People who accepted him. Iruka-sensei. Sasuke. Sakura-chan. Kakashi-sensei. And now the perverted sage, and Gaara, and maybe even Gaara’s sister and brother (even though he still wasn’t sure he liked Kankuro). He was on his way.

If he became Hokage, would that be enough to allow him to bond with Gaara?

Two days later, and he’d been left with a rotation of ninja trying to train him. Today’s was Anko, who had looked like she was having too much fun with the thought of beating him up. Naruto stamped his feet, trying to get some feeling back in them. Sometimes his extremities felt numb now. “All right. We doing the same thing as usual?”

Anko gave him the kind of grin that meant she was going to enjoy watching Naruto suffer. “Yup. You’re going to create rasengans until you’re ready to pass out.”

Naruto blanched. He _had_ passed out. The first time he’d made a rasengan, it had taken every ounce of his remaining chakra. Since then, he’d been able to make one, two, three in the course of about ten minutes, but it left him drained afterward; the hours practicing had seen him swoon like a girl on a number of occasions, to Ebisu’s everlasting delight.

He looked at his hands. He was _pretty_ sure he could do it better now – he knew the feel of the thing, and he knew the trick. He’d worked himself to exhaustion trying to get his rasengan out that first time. He’d done better when he’d been fighting against the crazy shark guy. He clenched his fingers into fists. Still, he hadn’t figured out how _many_ he could do, or how long he could continue without losing all of his chakra. He’d pushed himself to the limit a few times, and had needed to demand help from the nine-tailed fox.

Doing that was dangerous. He could feel the demon lurking in the back of his mind, hanging out with that empty space screaming for Gaara. He could swear the creature was grinning. It liked it when he asked for its help. He remembered the room inside of him where the fox resided; it was safely locked behind that cage door, sealed away where it couldn’t get loose. But if he kept reaching his hand inside the cage, how long would it be before it got bitten off?

The perverted sage was right. He needed more chakra for himself. Even if the demon fox kept up its end of the bargain and handed over its ‘rent’ without a fuss, he still needed more. He’d nearly failed when fighting Gaara, and then, when he’d been fighting those two weirdos, he’d felt his chakra running low, even though he hadn’t managed to do much.

He rubbed his arms one more time, then got into a fighting stance. “All right. I’m ready.”

“One second.” Jiraiya pointed up. Naruto looked, only to see the trees looming above them, nearly covering the sight of the sky, letting only splinters of light spill over the leaves all around them. “You’ll be doing this upside down.”

Naruto’s eyes widened. “Oh.” He grinned. “All right! Just you watch! I’ll get this by the end of the day!”

“You’re supposed to get it from the start,” Jiraiya said, but Naruto was already moving. He just sighed and watched as the young shinobi raced up the tree, once more expending far more chakra than he needed, but at least pushing some of it up and away, thus forcing a sort of balance. Over time, he would learn how to waste a little less. Still, control wasn’t something he naturally had. He couldn’t. There was too much in constant flux, thanks to the demon. He would just have to learn a way around.

Jiraiya watched him as, for the rest of the day, Naruto stood upside down on the tree, calling out bunshin after bunshin to help him form up rasengans. Jiraiya called up both jeers and pointers, then finally wandered away as Iruka-sensei came over to watch his progress after school ended for the day. Naruto wasn’t to be left alone ever again, or at least for the foreseeable future, thanks to the threat of those guys coming back and finishing what they’d started.

“Naruto! Hungry?” Iruka-sensei called up to him as the sun lowered, leaving them in nothing but shadows. Naruto looked up, nearly losing his balance as exhaustion swept over him. He lost control of his chakra on his left foot and swung wildly. Iruka-sensei hurried beneath him, ready to catch him if he fell. Naruto growled and spewed out more chakra to his foot, finally latching back onto the tree. He breathed heavily for several seconds.

“Yeah,” he finally answered. His stomach had stopped rumbling a while ago; now it just gnawed on the insides the black hole had yet to swallow up. “But I gotta finish this.” The rasengan in his hand wasn’t tightening up. He couldn’t get enough chakra into it to keep it spinning properly.

Iruka-sensei looked around, his lips thinning. Oh, right. It was dark out, and they were on the edges of Konoha territory. This was a perfect time for an ambush. He sighed and dropped down from the tree. He splattered onto Iruka-sensei, who fell beneath him with an _oof_. Naruto just lay there on top of Iruka for a while, shivering horribly. He’d thought the shivers were just from the disconnect from Gaara, but now, after so many hours training, it seemed he was even more tired than he’d first predicted. He mumbled something like a sorry and got up. Iruka placed one hand on Naruto’s shoulder and sat up, rubbing his head. “You all right?” he asked. Naruto nodded. “Right. Let’s get you some ramen.”

Naruto perked up at that. “Really?”

Iruka grinned. “Yeah.” He rubbed Naruto’s head and stood. He stretched, wincing for a second before rolling his shoulder. “You’ve worked hard today, and you’re going to be working even harder for a while. You need your energy.”

Naruto smiled. “Yay!” Energy restored, he ran ahead. “Come on, sensei! I’m starving!”

Iruka chuckled and followed at a much more sedate pace. Naruto urged him faster the entire way.

* * *

Sell it.

Sasuke could do that. Practicing with Kakashi wasn’t hard, though the man didn’t push him nearly as much as he wanted to be pushed. Instead Kakashi meted out his training in precise increments, demanding Sasuke practice with his sharingan in the mornings, and then, returning in the afternoons, learn about the sharingan’s uses with various techniques before once again finishing off the day with the chidori, trying to maximize the amount of times he could use the technique before the curse mark ruined everything again.

Every evening, as he struggled to control the curse mark and tamp down the power within it, he vowed to himself to learn the secrets of the mark placed upon him and gain the power Orochimaru had. He would lay in bed at night and stare up at his ceiling, envisioning Itachi, what he must have looked like when he’d gone after Naruto, trying once again to take everything from Sasuke one last time. Tormenting him as he’d tormented him since he was seven. Leaving him alone again.

Every night, he dreamed. He dreamed of that night, of the visions Itachi had forced him to see. He dreamed of Naruto staring up into those soulless red eyes, of blood caking that ridiculous orange outfit. Imagined arriving too late, only to find Itachi standing over Naruto’s corpse the way he’d stood over the corpses of their parents. Dreamed of being forced to watch Naruto’s death over and over, the way he’d seen the deaths of his parents. He dreamed of blood and of failure. And every morning, he vowed again, this time to kill Itachi and take revenge for every life his brother had ever had in his sights.

Kakashi remarked on the bubbling fury, the dark drive, on the fourth day of training. Sasuke said nothing, but inwardly he preened. Yes. He could do this. He could _sell it_. And when the time came, he could leave everything behind.

Anything for his vengeance.

Anything for those he’d sworn to protect.

* * *

 

 

Naruto saw Sakura for the first time in over a week when he arrived at his home late one night. She waited outside his apartment, her hands folded silently before her. She looked up as he approached and stepped toward him. “Naruto.”

He smiled and ran up to her, the ache in his body lessened at the sight of her. “Sakura-chan! How are you? Were you waiting for me?”

She nodded, then looked to the ground. “Naruto, have you seen Sasuke?”

He sighed. As usual, she was more interested in Sasuke than in him. He pointed at himself. “You haven’t wondered where I’ve been?”

She looked back at him. “Kakashi-sensei said you were undergoing some sort of special training. He says the same thing about Sasuke-kun, that he’s teaching Sasuke-kun something, but I haven’t seen him in forever, and I only see Kakashi-sensei late at night or early in the morning.” She twisted her hands. “Sasuke-kun was acting strangely before you came back, too. I’m worried.”

Naruto thought about the reason for Sasuke’s aloofness. After pestering him for forever, Jiraiya finally revealed that Itachi, the guy who attacked him, was Sasuke’s older brother. Whatever was going on with Sasuke, it had to be because of him. Naruto didn’t know exactly what was going on – Jiraiya hadn’t said, and he hadn’t been able or willing to ask – but from what he’d seen of the guy, it couldn’t have been anything good. Naruto knew all about carrying demons. “It’s not my place to say what happening, Sakura-chan. But if you’re really worried, then maybe the next time you see Sasuke or Kakashi-sensei, you could try to remind him that you’re there?” He scratched the back of his head and chuckled, a bit uneasy. “I mean, maybe whatever’s getting to him would be easier to deal with if he knew he wasn’t alone.”

She nodded. “So you know what’s going on, too.” Her lips pursed. Her eyes squinted. “Why am I always the one in the dark?”

He leaned forward, hands reaching out instinctively. He turned the movement into a wave as if fending off a storm when he realized. “No! Nothing like that! It’s just…” He sighed again. Pulled back. She glared up at him. “I was involved in it, a little bit. It wasn’t my fault!” He said when her glare shifted a bit. “But because of that, I learned a little bit about what’s going on. Nothing for sure, but, you know. Enough.” He cleared his throat. “I dunno exactly what’s happening, but I think Sasuke just needs some time, you know? And I don’t think I’m someone he’d be willing to listen to. Maybe you, though…”

His words stumbled once again to a halt. He didn’t know that anything anyone said could make this okay. Sasuke’s brother was a missing nin, a member of this group Jiraiya called Akatsuki. He’d abandoned the village – abandoned Sasuke – and then tried to kill Naruto. Sasuke must have suffered a great deal over those facts alone.

Sakura frowned. “I guess… I could go cheer him on,” she said, already talking mostly to herself. Naruto watched as she started listing off things she could do, only to stop when he heard her talk about making Sasuke a handmade lunch for his training tomorrow.

“Oh! Me, too!” He pointed at himself. “I’ve been training hard, too!”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “You can have one, too.” She pointed at him as he cheered. “But only the stuff that doesn’t come out well! I’m giving the best to Sasuke!”

He wasn’t deterred. He’d never gotten a handmade lunch before. Iruka-sensei, for all that he tried, was a horrible cook, just like Naruto, and usually chose to treat Naruto to ramen than try his hand at cooking anything. And Kakashi-sensei was all about giving him nasty vegetables, but not really there for sticking around to try to cook them into something that didn’t taste like – well, like cooked vegetables. He wondered what a handmade lunch tasted like.

It didn’t matter. Sakura was making one especially for him. He couldn’t wait.

Hopefully, he thought, heading inside as Sakura made her way home for the night, it would even make Sasuke a little happy, too. Though Naruto would fall over in a dead faint if the jerk ever actually smiled.

* * *

“Concentrate!” Ebisu shouted at him. If Naruto hadn’t been so certain he was going to splinter into pieces, he would have ‘spilled’ some of his grease bombs into the man’s hair.

It had been nearly a week, and Naruto had fallen into a fit of constant shivers, his entire body nearly seizing every few minutes from the empty feeling opening up like a cavern in the pit of his stomach. As if his chest had a giant hole in it that was only growing bigger and bigger. He hugged himself as he stood upside down, his chakra going wild as he fought for control. He wanted so badly to run to Gaara it had become a constant physical need. He shivered again, even though he felt like he was standing in Gaara’s desert. He was losing his mind. Something – something inside him – was going to snap.

“Are you napping? Pay attention!”

Ebisu threw a kunai at him. Naruto dodged by flipping himself up until he was standing normally. Ebisu made a disparaging sound. “You’re supposed to be testing your chakra to its limits, not taking the easy way out!”

Naruto clutched at his head, then his chest. He’d been told that the only way to deal with it was to just ride it out. With Gaara in Suna and him in Konoha, there was no way for them to cement their bond. Not any time soon. He knew that, and yet this felt _wrong_. He found his feet moving, preparing him to jump, before he even let himself think about it. Only Ebisu’s second kunai stopped him. Thankfully, the man had thrown it so only the blunt end hit him. Otherwise, Naruto would be sporting a puncture wound.

“Whatever you’re thinking of instead of your training, use that extra energy to push yourself forward.” The man hitched up his glasses as he spoke. Naruto turned wide eyes to him. “Well? Or does your conviction end here?”

Gaara had to be going through the same pain he was. An unfinished bond, severed through distance, hurt both parties. And though he wasn’t positive just what it was he’d done to make them bond so closely in such a short span of time, he was certain it was his fault. Which meant Gaara was suffering this because of _him._

The attack that had come to him had also come to Gaara, too. They both needed to get stronger, even if they felt like their bond was tearing them apart. He wanted to get strong enough that he could protect those he cared about. This village, and Gaara, and even stupid Sasuke, whose brother was an even bigger jerk than him and thus couldn’t be trusted to not hurt Sasuke, either. All the people he cared about were in danger, and here he was whining because his bond was breaking down.

He could get stronger. He and Gaara could still meet u later and forge this bond properly, without having to worry about the idiots in Suna getting between them. If he became Hokage, he could just ask Gaara to come over to Konoha, and they would be able to complete their bond then. But if he didn’t get any stronger, then not only would he be unable to get Gaara to come over, he might not be able to protect Gaara properly when this Akatsuki group came back for them.

He straightened, then flipped upside down again. If he was in agony, then he would just use it as another way to push himself to his limit. When Ebisu threw another kunai, he twisted on one foot, spinning a full three hundred sixty degrees before slamming his foot back into the underside of the tree branch. Ebisu smirked. “Good. Let’s see how long you can keep that up.”

Naruto shot the man the finger. “All day, you four-eyed closet pervert!”

The man threw three kunai. “I am _not_ a closet pervert!”

* * *

“There.”

Gaara looked over at Temari as she moved to his side. He stood at the edge of the cliff facing the entrance to Sunagakure; it was the same place he’d stood when Naruto had made his impromptu visit to the village. Temari looked out, as well, tracing the lines of orange in the fading sunset. “I got us a chance to revisit Konoha.”

Gaara raised a brow. His arms were crossed in front of him, attempting to affect apathy when inside he felt as if he was being torn into ribbons. “Why?”

Temari sent him a knowing look. “You know why.”

He looked away again. Right. He should have known. He was learning that his sister, for all that she acted as if she didn’t know or care about much, was perhaps the most perceptive person he knew. The sunset was dark this night, leaning from blue to black with only a speckling of orange and yellow to clear the way. Still, Gaara stood within it, feeling the weather dip alarmingly, as it always did in the desert when the sunlight died. The wind against his skin was cool, yet it blazed like a furnace in the back of his mind. He clenched his fingers into the skin of his arms.

“Besides,” Temari said, and sat down on the rock beneath their feet. Gaara cast a side glance her way. “There’s someone I want to see, too.”

Gaara tilted his head. He hadn’t known, though he’d thought there had been something in Temari during their time in Konoha. Something that said she didn’t like what her duty had demanded. He’d thought the reticence due to her disliking attacking an ally. Apparently there might have been more to it than that.

“Not just me, too, I think,” she continued, and now there was a small smile on her face. “Not that he’d ever mention it. I think all of us are cursed to be separated from our bondmate.”

That one caught him off-guard; while he could imagine Temari being bonded with little difficulty, the idea of Kankuro being bonded, as well, felt strange. He supposed it only fair, of course. The oddest bond was the one within himself.

He took a deep breath. Soon, then. Soon, this pain would end, and he would hear the desert wind once more. The thought made the ache within him lessen, as if his very soul understood his intent. Even if it was only a short visit, it would be enough to mitigate the pain clawing at his insides, waking Shukaku into a constant, all-consuming rage. The roar in the background of his thoughts hadn’t ceased for several days. That alone might have made him agree without complaint, even without his own yearning.

A bond once begun was not so easily stifled.

He looked to Temari, still sitting beside him. She looked at peace. Before he’d met Naruto, she’d always been tense with him. Everyone had been. Yet it had taken her so little time to become accustomed to him like this. She always made the effort to prove how unafraid she was, too. As if to say she knew he would no longer hurt her.

“The Council,” she said, breaking a silence that lasted several minutes, “hasn’t decided yet, by the way. They’ll likely use our leave to argue with one another over it.”

He stared at the horizon, the only part of the sky still orange, though the sun had long since dipped below the last line of sand. “They would prefer Kankuro.” He already knew that. Kankuro already knew that. Twelve old men arguing in a room was already bad enough most days; when they all had it in their heads that the decision had already been made, it was even worse. Kankuro had been the one to put his foot down, refusing the position of Kazekage and leaving the old men dithering over how to convince him instead of searching for another option. Likely because, since Sunagakure passed its titles through familial lineages, their other options were a female – and for shame on such an idea, says every single old man in the Council – or Gaara.

Usually, Baki noted, the family lineage was to ensure a member close to the Kazekage could show affinity with Shukaku and become the village’s weapon. It was not so that one such weapon could someday become Kazekage.

“Let them argue,” he said finally. He didn’t care. No matter what anyone said, he would become kazekage. While there was arguably another way to get Naruto into Suna – he was certain Kankuro would not deny him – he had little other ways of proving to himself that he could be something more than what the world tried to make him into. He wanted what Naruto had. He wanted people who cared about him. He wanted to prove to himself that the soul matched to his had chosen wisely. And yes, he wanted to prove, to himself, to Naruto. To the world. That he was someone who could match the kind of heart that would look upon someone like him and weep in empathy.

When he looked back at his sister, it was to see her smiling up at him. “That’s right,” she said. The wind tickled her bangs, flitted around her ponytails. It was a fraction of the wind he was looking for, but it felt good, nonetheless. “We have more important things to look toward.”

Yes. He stared at the sunset. Soon, he would see the open expanse of desert sky again, and hear its song in his soul.


	12. Into the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some events are preordained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday, Gaara!
> 
> In celebration of Gaara's birthday tomorrow, I finally have another chapter ready for you!

Jiraiya came back, saying he had all the information he needed. Though he commended Naruto for his hard work, he made Naruto stop and shooed away Iruka-sensei. He sat Naruto down on the grass and leaned down in front of him. “You wanted to know what had happened between Sasuke and Uchiha Itachi,” Jiraiya had said. Naruto had nodded, though slowly, not liking the tone to the pervert’s voice.

Jiraiya told him. His voice stayed clipped, matter-of-fact, as he told Naruto of how Sasuke’s older brother had killed every single person in his clan, including their parents, and had tortured Sasuke with the images of their deaths before running away.

Then the sage left, telling Naruto he had to report in to Tsunade, and left him alone. Naruto hadn’t been able to concentrate on training. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything. He’d wandered the village, so used to using his chakra lately that he’d wandered in a straight line, mindlessly climbing up buildings and trees and boxes in his path, walking aimlessly over the small stream near the village entrance, hoisting himself over railings. Moving back and forth, gaze on the ground, until finally he stopped.

Sasuke stood in front of him.

It probably hadn’t been the best thing to do. And, if he was going to do it, he was fairly positive he could have used more tact. But he didn’t. He blurted out, right there in the middle of – on a rooftop in the middle of Konoha – that he knew. That he knew, and he was sorry, and did Sasuke want help beating his brother up?

Probably could have been a little smarter about it.

But was it his fault that Sasuke got so angry with him over it? Was it his fault that Sasuke had snorted, waved Naruto’s offer away, and said, “as if you could help,” right to his face? And, yeah, he could have just ignored it, or brushed it off, but it had been rude! Naruto was willing to fight that crazy guy, even willing to risk watching those horrible things happen again, just to help Sasuke with his revenge! And he _could_ help! He was stronger. He’d proven that by then, hadn’t he?

So he’d offered to do just that. Prove it. And Sasuke had just. Kept insulting him. How strong was Naruto going to have to become before Sasuke looked at him with something other than contempt? Naruto didn’t have to be protected anymore, like he had with Haku. He’d worked so hard to become Sasuke’s equal.

They’d fought. He didn’t even know – how was he to know that they’d end up – and Sakura had seen, had screamed from down below for them to stop – she’d been delivering Sasuke his lunch, apparently, and – Kakashi had stopped them. Had been looking for Sasuke to continue his training, or. Something. Kakashi had managed to stop them just in time. He hadn’t been thinking, had only thought – prove to Sasuke he was strong, that they were equals, that Sasuke shouldn’t disregard him any longer. He hadn’t been thinking.

This wasn’t going to end. He’d vowed that so many times in his life that the words came out rote. “I won’t let it end here.” He would prove that he was worthy of being Sasuke’s equal. He would help take down the psycho Uchiha brother. He would protect Gaara. He would defeat Akatsuki. He would bond with his soulmate. And he would become Hokage.

Late at night, the end of the day passing into the beginning of the next, Naruto huddled into a ball on his bed and wondered how long that list of his was going to get.

* * *

Even with all the training he’d done in the past week, Sasuke felt as if he hadn’t improved a whit by the time Orochimaru made his move.

Jiraiya had come to him a week into his training, ordering him to meet up with Naruto. The old man had given him the same look he’d used before, when he’d told Sasuke he needed to ‘sell it.’

Sasuke had considered how to push Naruto and Sakura away further, but in the end, he needn’t have worried. Naruto had generously granted him an opportunity all on his own. He couldn’t deny how infuriating it was to see how much Naruto had grown in so short a time; the fury had lent credence to his act, and Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi had all been left thinking he’d purposefully called out the chidori with full intention of using it on Naruto.

But he’d had his sharingan activated. He’d seen Kakashi coming.

After that, it had been too easy. Kakashi-sensei had tracked him down and given him a lecture on what his ninjutsu was for. Had told him to _give up_ on his revenge. He was infinitely glad the frog sannin had chosen to speak with him first; Kakashi’s either-or campaign would have given Sasuke far more trouble.

They’d come later that same evening, as Sasuke had sat where Kakashi had left him, gazing out at Konoha and memorizing the look of it. He wouldn’t be allowed back for years. If anything happened to the new Hokage – the female sannin, apparently – and Jiraiya, then he might never be allowed back; he didn’t know if something this dangerous would be left to chance, written down for anyone to find. If it came down to it, few would ever believe he’d gone into this as a double-agent.

He’d fought Orochimaru’s henchmen. They’d wanted him to, clearly, and he’d disliked them enough, wanted to fight something enough, that he’d gone all-in. The shock of how weak he was had silenced his last concerns. The sannin had been right. No one could teach him strength like Orochimaru. He needed to go.

So he did.

* * *

Naruto answered the door at the sound of the knock, still rubbing his eyes to get the gunk out. Dawn had barely crept in; who on earth in this village was actually trying to get in touch with him? Usually the only people to come to his door were Iruka-sensei or the members of Team Seven, and he was certain there was no early meeting, so there was no reason for them to arrive before the sun. To his surprise, the one at the door had not been any of his team, but Shikamaru.

“Naruto,” Shikamaru had said, dispensing greetings, “Sasuke’s left to join Orochimaru. We have a mission to retrieve him.”

“ _What?!”_ Naruto shrieked. “That bastard!” He’d just finished telling Sakura he wouldn’t do that! That he was perfectly strong as he was! “Wait a sec, I just gotta change!” Naruto raced back inside, already ripping off his shirt as he ran.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was worked to the bone for days while his chest opened up some sort of Gaara-shaped cavity! As if it wasn’t enough that some crazy group of nutjobs had made it their business to go after him and Gaara! Now Sasuke had to go and be stupid, too?!

Shikamaru gave him the rundown of the situation as best he could under the time limit – only thirty minutes altogether to grab up as many strong genin as possible. Just genin – everyone else was away on missions. The thought made Naruto shiver. Only genin against a guy like Orochimaru?

But no. They would get to Sasuke before then. Sasuke wouldn’t join someone like that. He wouldn’t _become_ someone like that.

The hole in his chest called out desperately for his other half. He wanted, for some reason, to have Gaara by his side. He was so sure he would be at least a little more okay, if only Gaara was there. Then he would know that he wasn’t alone, that he wasn’t watching the bonds he’d reached for so desperately stretch to the point of tearing.

No. This thing he’d fought so hard for wasn’t so easily broken. If it was, then what was the point of working so hard for it?

The clock ticked them toward the end of their time. By dawn, they had raced to the entrance of Konoha. It was only the five of them – himself, Shikamaru, Chouji (of all people), Kiba, and Neji. Rock Lee watched, though he was still recovering from his fight with Gaara. Shikamaru set up a plan – a good plan, actually – and checked their stashes, then gave them a quick pep talk. Naruto was already jumpy from adrenaline, his skin heated even in the chilly morning air. He didn’t need the pep talk, but maybe the others did. Naruto wouldn’t argue with someone giving his teammates the push they needed to help him protect Sasuke from his own stupidity.

Naruto managed only a single step before Sakura called out to him. He turned back to Konoha’s gate. Sakura stood beneath the arch. She looked awful. The very fact that she’d come meant she’d heard. He’d wanted to get Sasuke back before she learned about what he’d done. “Sakura-chan…”

Shikamaru turned to her, as well. “I heard the story from the hokage,” Shikamaru said. Naruto tilted his head. “Sorry, but I can’t take you on this mission.” Shikamaru faced her squarely. “Even you couldn’t convince Sasuke, right?”

Naruto jerked. “What?”

Sakura looked away as if unable to bear facing them any longer. “It seems we have to force him to understand,” Shikamaru continued. “Sakura, your job is done.”

Naruto lurched forward. The tiny step brought the tears in Sakura’s eyes into focus. “Sakura-chan?” She didn’t look at him. “You already met with Sasuke?”

She curled into herself. The tears in her eyes slid down her cheeks.

She had. She’d already seen Sasuke like this. She already knew.

“Naruto! I beg you!” She bent down, almost like she was bowing, but she wasn’t. She was just no longer able to hold herself up. “Please. Please bring Sasuke back!”

For months, Naruto had thought Sakura and Sasuke couldn’t be soulmates. But did that matter? A bond was a bond.

“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stop him! The only person who can save Sasuke now… it’s probably you, Naruto.” She curled her fists tight to her chest. “Only you.”

Bonds. He wasn’t the only one desperately trying to latch on to them. Sakura-chan, too. When he’d pretended to be Sasuke to get close to her, she’d admitted that she’d always wanted Sasuke to acknowledge her. Maybe they _were_ soulmates, and Sasuke had just dismissed her long ago. Naruto looked down. What would have happened to him if Gaara had denied him again? If he’d gone to Suna, only for Gaara to dismiss him like he was nothing? The tearing, gaping wound in his heart would be so much worse. More than anything, the thought of not being loved by his soulmate crippled him.

He took a deep breath. “You really like Sasuke, huh?” he asked, though he didn’t need the answer. He nodded. “I know what you’re going through right now.” That was right. The first time – the whole time during the Chuunin Exam – he’d known the pain of not being acknowledged by his other half. “I know all too well.”

For some reason, his words only made her cry harder. She hugged herself. “Naruto.” Her voice was a wail. A lamentation. He understood that, too. “Thank you.”

He pointed to himself. “Don’t worry! I’ll bring him back!” He gave her a thumbs up. “That’s a promise of a lifetime!”

Kiba tsked at him. “Sure you can keep that promise?” he asked.

Naruto turned on him, ready to snap at him, when he saw the teasing grin on Kiba’s face. Oh. Trying to get the attention off of Sakura. Okay, then. Naruto grinned. “I won’t go back on my word. That’s my way of the ninja.” He turned and punched the air, making as big a fuss of himself as he could. “All right! Let’s go!”

Everyone turned with him, and Sakura was left to collect herself or break down in peace, without the eyes of all and sundry upon her.

They would get Sasuke back. He would personally drag the idiot back by his heels and dump in front of Sakura and demand he apologize for hurting his soulmate. And then… and then…

He didn’t know. But he would figure it out. That was his way of the ninja, too.

* * *

“Seishingan.” The freak with two heads held up a vial filled with little black pills. “I need you to swallow one.”

Sasuke eyed the things. He was supposed to ‘die,’ or come so close to it that any significant difference was lost. He was only about seventy percent certain he would actually survive the experience; this could all be a very elaborate trap, or a way to gain his Uchiha kekkei genkai without having to do practically any work. He glared up at the freak. “Seishingan? What the hell is that?”

He listened to the explanation, but really, it didn’t matter. No matter what it was, he would take it. He’d already thrown himself too far the instant he’d knocked Sakura out on his exit from the village. This choice was official now. There would be no backing out.

He looked back down at the pills as the freak handed them to him. The man – Sakon, if he remembered correctly – explained his and the others’ barrier abilities. He remembered hearing something about that before, when others had informed him of the battle between Orochimaru and the Third Hokage. “Your barrier skills. How reliable are they?”

Kidoumaru – Spider-Man – smirked and pointed at himself. “Hey now, Sasuke-sama. We’re the elite guards of Orochimaru-sama himself. Our strongest skills are seals and barriers.”

Four people, all of them specializing in keeping Orochimaru alive. Was the man afraid of death? Weaker than Sasuke, and the world, originally believed? Or did he plan to do more of what he’d done in Konoha, and use others as distractions while he targeted a specific person?

Sasuke couldn’t help but think of Naruto, already targeted by other people. By his brother. It was bad enough that Itachi had his bloody gaze on Naruto. Did Orochimaru want him, as well? Whatever secret the village was keeping about him, if Jiraiya and Tsunade both knew it, then chances were high that all three sannin did. That made Orochimaru a potential threat to Naruto, as well.

God. Whatever that little blond idiot had done, he was really in deep for it.

“I’m counting on it,” he muttered, and swallowed the pill, not allowing himself any hesitation. He refused to die, no matter what these people said. He had idiots to protect and brothers to kill. This was going to be his beginning, not his end.

The effect was nearly instant. He could _feel_ the pill as it slid like a fire bomb down his throat. He’d thought it would explode once it reached his stomach, but instead it shot like lightning through his stomach and chest. He tried to breathe in and felt his lungs seize. The mark on his neck burned as if branded. The lightning snaked it way to his heart.

He fell to his knees.

Around him, Orochimaru’s minions moved. The sound got drowned out by the horrible pounding of his heart in his ears, drowning out the ever-present noise singing at the back of his mind. It was almost a relief.

And then blackness, too shallow to completely swallow the agony stinging like nettles along his blood stream. Still, it was better than consciousness, and Sasuke accepted it.

* * *

The desert hills of Sunagakure were less than two hours behind them; before and around them now stretched the long road of forest, the trees at first long and thick, but now turning slightly smaller as they reached a more temperate clime. Gaara and his siblings had actually shared quiet discussion over the past several hours, conversation waxing and waning almost naturally. There had been one hiccup, in which Kankuro had joked about the insanity of them all finding their soulmates just as they’d been ordered to assassinate their mates’ home village, but after Temari had snarled at him, things had calmed.

The forest was empty for some time; they passed a couple of chakra signatures, but nothing more than ninja passing on their ways to their own missions. None seemed vested in Suna or its nin in any way – until one young kunoichi. She came in the exact direction they headed – Konoha – and stopped the instant she saw them. “Oh,” she said. It explained nothing.

The girl dropped down from the branches above them. Her gaze caught on Gaara for a short moment, but the one she focused on was actually Temari. Temari, as well, seemed almost surprised to see her. “Wait a minute. Aren’t you the girl I fought in the Chuunin Exam?”

The girl tensed. Her face scrunched as if Temari’s words carried an odor. “You.” She nodded to Gaara’s right, toward his brother. “You’re Kankuro, right?”

Kankuro tilted his head. “Uh, yes? Why?”

The girl inched closer. She wore a tight pink shirt, too form-fitting to allow strenuous movement around her shoulders. Likely a mid- to long-range fighter, then. He barely recalled the girl’s battle with Temari; it had been short and to the point, due mainly to the girl’s lack of comparable skill. Even now, she looked like a waif before Temari as his sister stepped forward. The girl pulled out a scroll, one of many from her pack. Temari stopped advancing and grabbed the head of her fan. The girl smirked. “Afraid?”

“Attack and see.” Temari waited. For annoyingly long seconds, the two kunoichi faced off. Gaara crossed his arms, trying to hide the clenching of his fingers. This one was from Konoha, and had stopped at seeing them. Seeing Kankuro? Or him? Was the problem to do with their soulmates? Gaara strained his senses, but he could hear nothing save the wind in the back of his mind. If Naruto was hurt, or afraid, or angry, he did not know.

“We’ll have to wait for that.” The kunoichi held out the scroll in her hand. Kankuro, seeing her hand it out toward him, moved forward. “I was told to deliver this to you and your council as quickly as possible.”

“ _My_ council?” Kankuro scowled. Temari elbowed him in the ribs. Kankuro made a choking sound. That was what happened when one practically announced the political turmoil of their country to an outsider.

“Thank you,” Temari said. “Dear brother, I assume I have permission to open this now?”

Kankuro managed a wheeze and a glare.

“Thank you.” The girl before them narrowed her eyes, but when Kankuro didn’t protest louder, she let it go. Temari opened the letter, scanned the message, and paled. “Gaara…”

Before she even finished speaking his name, his sand moved. It grabbed the letter from her fingers, making everyone around him jump. Temari quickly let the letter go. He took it from his sand, his lips thin. He would have to be more careful. Everyone still well remembered what his sand could do.

That concern, however, vanished as he read the message in front of him. At first, the message seemed to do little but subtly hint that Konoha’s kage already knew the council was in turmoil over the loss of their own village leader. Not too surprising; since they had yet to name a successor to the old Kazekage, the new Hokage had had little choice but to name the heir apparent and his council. The woman had also written “or whomever this may concern,” thus proving her own lack of information on the matter.

The actual body of the letter, however, was another matter entirely. He crumpled the paper in his hand. “Where is Naruto?”

Kankuro stared at the paper in Gaara’s fist. He didn’t say anything. Without turning to him, Gaara used his sand to hand the paper off to him. It took several short moments, during which Kankuro stared and stared, but finally, his brother reached out and gingerly plucked the letter from his outstretched sand.

The girl, meanwhile, scrunched her face further, now looking more like she’d tasted something slightly off. “The one who defeated Neji? Why do you need to know?”

Defeated Neji? Was this one unaware of Gaara’s battle with Naruto?

“Just answer the question,” Kankuro said. He stood straight, lowered the latter, and glared down at the girl. For a moment, he looked like a kage. Or perhaps like the powerful bully he’d shown to Naruto, back when they’d needed a reason to justify what they’d known they’d be doing. Either way, Gaara felt something warm in his chest from it. Kankuro was asking for him.

The kunoichi lifted her chin in defiance, but nonetheless answerd. “He’s in the team attempting to retrieve Sasuke.”

Of course he was. Uzumaki Naruto was not the type to be left behind. “Then he is headed straight for Orochimaru.” The man had shown no qualms in killing Rasa and manipulating the entire Suna village. What if this was yet another of Orochimaru’s plans? What if, like those two men before, Orochimaru was after those who carried monsters? What if Orochimaru wanted the one who had stopped Gaara, thereby ruining the usurper’s plans?

“We have to hurry,” Gaara said, his voice tight.

“We’ll provide them back-up,” Kankuro said to the kunoichi. “Thank you for sending this message to us.”

Thank you for taking this route, Gaara wanted to say; if Suna’s council had learned of Naruto’s involvement, they would have dithered for far too long. Such was the nature of those who feared the idea of Gaara having a soulmate.

The girl nodded. “I’ll come with you.”

Gaara was already running. “Just don’t slow us down.” He took the lead in his efforts to hurry, pushing them past the leisurely pace they’d set earlier. He strained his senses out once more. Nothing. He gritted his teeth. If only they hadn’t been separated. If only he was close enough. How far away were they? The letter had said they were headed for the country of sound. It was nearly in the opposite direction from Suna; despite having traveled nearly half of the way to Konoha, they might as well be facing nearly the full distance between their two villages before reaching Naruto. How much further did Gaara have to travel before he got close enough to hear Naruto again?

Of course, the worst could have already happened. The letter had said a small team of genin – genin! – had been sent out to retrieve Sasuke at dawn. Dawn had passed hours ago. So much could have already happened. They might already have breached the span of distance needed for him to hear Naruto again.

No. Naruto was strong. There would be evidence of any fight he got involved in. Naruto would not be so easily defeated.

Of course, the enemy now could be his friend. Gaara might have been the only other person in Naruto’s life to truly understand the value of such a thing. Friendship was worth more than anything else. What would happen to Naruto if his enemy happened to be Sasuke? And it could be. There had been enough hate in Uchiha Sasuke for Gaara to feel a kinship with him. That level of hate had led Gaara to try to kill his soulmate.

A friend was so much less than that.

Naruto, on the other hand, loved. Love, in battle, paralyzed. Sasuke had apparently acknowledged Naruto at some point; that acknowledgment left an indelible mark on those like Naruto and Gaara. Of all the people in all the world, Gaara knew that. Just as he knew its price. Unlike Gaara, Naruto had had no Yashamaru in his life. Naruto had never faced a loved one’s betrayal. How would he respond? Would he lose his capacity for kindness, as Gaara had? Would he be changed into someone unrecognizable?

Would he even defend himself? Or would he freeze, as Gaara had? Only Naruto’s demon was not Gaara’s. It had no natural barrier. No shield. Without his demon to defend him, would Naruto bother to stop his friend from killing him? Or would he live, only for Gaara to lose him to despair? To have him for so short a time, only for Sasuke to do to Naruto what Yashamaru had done to him?

He ran faster. His siblings followed suit without protest.

* * *

They passed some group of people Kiba and Akamaru noticed, a group with blood on them because Sasuke was being escorted by strong people (maybe, his brain thought feverishly, maybe they’d forced Sasuke to go; maybe this wasn’t him at all, maybe it was someone in disguise, or maybe Sasuke got kidnapped, because this wasn’t like Sasuke at all, even if his crazy brother _was_ back in town). Even after those, they faced a million and a half traps, though thankfully he had a bunch of people with him who were better than him at spotting them. And even after _those_ , they were still on match for those who had secreted Sasuke away.

They got caught immediately, trapped in a position where just escaping meant leaving one of their own behind. And then again. And again. Chouji, who stood for Shikamaru’s honor. Who did not catch up with them as time crept on. Neji, who saved Naruto from the spider guy’s counterstrike.

“ _Naruto, you have better eyes than me. Right now, Sasuke is trapped in darkness.”_

Neji, too, had promised to catch up with them. By then, Naruto had learned what those words meant.

But Naruto knew better. If those two had really meant good-bye – if they’d really thought they didn’t stand a chance – they wouldn’t have promised to meet up with them later.

They would win. He believed in them.

* * *

They won.

They got Sasuke back, albeit wrapped up in a creepy coffin. They managed to all get away, leaving the lady and the lipstick guy behind. They even had traps set up and waiting, save for the last Akamaru was placing down–

And then Akamaru tripped.

The rest happened so fast – Kiba ran to save Akamaru, and together with the lipstick guy, fell down the ravine next to them. Then the lady came after Naruto and Shikamaru, and Shikamaru ordered Naruto to take Sasuke and run. To leave the last of them behind, all for Sasuke’s sake. Then the lady was coming, and Shikamaru was yelling at him to _hurry_ , and then–

And then.

And then, from behind him, from out of nowhere. Another showed up. One that made the woman in front of them pale at the sight of, one that made her halt in her tracks and stop pursuing them. Before Naruto could do more than sense this new guy’s presence, Sasuke’s coffin was wrenched from his hands and the branch shaken as the newcomer snatched the coffin and hopped away.

“Sorry, Naruto,” Shikamaru said, even as Naruto turned to face the new guy. “Looks like I miscalculated.”

The new guy didn’t even look at them. With Sasuke’s coffin beside him, he seemed almost uninterested in Naruto and Shikamaru. His gaze latched on the woman. “You were taking too long, Tayuya.”

Tayuya? Naruto shifted a bit, regaining his balance. Hadn’t she named this guy, too? What was it? Kimimaro?

“And where are the other three?” Kimimaro asked, continuing to act as if they weren’t there. “You who were once one of the five…”

Naruto gritted his teeth. He’d been so close. He’d _had_ him. Sasuke had been in his arms, for just a second. For just a second, he’d thought they might succeed. He’d thought they might be able to drag him back, yell at him – Naruto had even started imagining what he’d say – and go back to the way things had been. He would pledge to fight Sasuke’s brother with him, and they would keep training, and… and then _this._

“Why… why are you…?!” The woman, Tayuya, tensed, even as she responded to the man.

“I’m not moving with my body anymore,” the man said. The man continued ignoring them. Naruto chanced a quick look to Shikamaru, but he was watching the man. Planning again? Naruto looked, as well, in case he needed to fight.

Tayuya cursed, sounding almost awed. “With one foot in the grave…”

Grave? He didn’t look injured. Had he fought these guys? Was he one of the ones who had met these people and ended up bloody? Why had he taken Sasuke?

The man looked at his own hand for a second before tilting his head. “I can understand a little bit now. This is life as a consciousness. It’s as if I’ve touched the borders of Orochimaru-sama’s dream.”

Naruto jerked. _Orochimaru!_

He gritted his teeth. So this guy wasn’t an enemy to these people at all. He was their ally. Their _friend_. He worked for Orochimaru, too.

Which meant Sasuke was once again in Orochimaru’s reach!

The look of the man’s eyes suddenly darkened. Naruto shivered. He’d seen that look before. On his soulmate. “This,” the young man touched Sasuke’s coffin, “is an important vessel for that dream. But you were a bit too late.”

Naruto’s hands clenched into fists. Orochimaru’s dream? Vessel?! Sasuke was more than all of that!Sasuke was _better_ than all that; he didn’t need to be some pawn for Orochimaru. Sasuke was perfectly strong all on his own. Who cared about Orochimaru’s dreams, anyway?! Sasuke wasn’t a part of any of that. Naruto wouldn’t _let_ him be. No one would use Sasuke for their own ends. He wouldn’t let it happen!

He launched forward. He didn’t have a plan, of course; maybe he could get forward, attack the guy. Or maybe he could be the distraction. He wasn’t great for much other than plain fighting. Of course, if it _was_ fighting, then he could do it.

“Hey, you!” he shouted, grabbing the attention of the weirdos. Attention was what he was best at, after all, even more than fighting. “Quit babbling nonsense! Give Sasuke back!”

The ‘half-dead’ dude didn’t so much as move. Naruto pulled his fist back to strike – only for the lady to appear and smash her fist into his cheek. The hit was hard, way harder than he expected. He went flying. He hit something – a tree, he thought at first, only softer. And it cursed a bit under his weight. Shikamaru grabbed him around his waist and set him down on a tree. Naruto sat up very, very slowly. The world spun. His cheek felt aflame. He ran his tongue along a cut on the inside of his cheek and spat out the coppery taste.

Well, that hadn’t worked.

“Calm down, Naruto!” Shikamaru hissed. Naruto cursed, then looked up and cursed again. The lady was now standing in-between them and Sasuke. The weird new guy turned around and ran off, taking Sasuke with him. “Naruto, listen.” Naruto turned back to him. “From now on, move according to what I tell you.”

Shikamaru had a plan. Naruto closed his mouth. For all that he pretended to not know anything, he did understand a dangerous situation when he saw one. Throughout all of this, Shikamaru had more than proven himself. “All right,” he said.

This was it. Go big or go home.

Without Sasuke.

Naruto grinned and wiped the blood from his lip. That wasn’t going to happen.


End file.
